Against the Wind
by EnchanteRhea
Summary: [Sequel to Desperado] Brilliant minds don't go unnoticed, Watari learned after his death. Pulled into the Mother Project soon after, he let his ambition loose. Thirty years have passed, the deal is long gone. But is it? Enma believes otherwise. [Tatari]
1. Prologue

**Against the Wind**  
by Rhea Logan

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_Sequel to **Absit Omen** and **Desperado**_ --Brilliant minds don't go unnoticed, Watari learned after his death. Pulled into the Mother Project soon after, he let his ambition loose. Thirty years have passed, the deal is long gone. But is it? Enma believes otherwise.

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This story draws on the few canon facts known about Watari's backstory. That would be parts 56-58 of _Yami no Matsuei_, published in Hana to Yume. So, a fair warning: since there's no real backstory besides the hints, I'm writing one. In regards to the story as a whole, if the manga is ever finished, you will be probably best off treating this as an AU; of sorts, at least.

The story proper is written in 3rd person; the prologue is in the 1st because it made more sense that way. _  
Warning_: Violence (chapter 1), psychological mind games.

The music: Dead Can Dance - _Summoning of the Muse_. As always, e-mail me if you want it.  
Legal stuff: Yami no Matsuei is not mine. If it were mine, I wouldn't be writing fanfiction.

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**Against the Wind**  
Prologue

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I was born. I lived. I died. It was that simple.

Ambition must have been my middle name; inherent or not, it was always there. And so, in the flash that is your life you're supposed to see upon your death I saw not what I had done, but what I hadn't.

Frustration was alien to me, back then. I had the curiosity of a child and the patience of a saint, at least where work was concerned. That was what drove me straight to the fire with no fear of getting burned.

I always knew that when it was my time to go, it would be spectacular. And so, when I _did_ get burned, it had to be all the way down to ash.

At the age of twenty-four, my sentiments on dying were nothing short of fury. I wasn't ready to let go and, if I had anything to say about it, it wouldn't end like that. By the time I had exchanged the first greetings with Enma DaiOh, I had a perfect plan. I would use this time, how much of it he was willing to grant me, to do all I would have done, had that lab not exploded and taken me with it.

The offer was superb; astounding, even. Unlimited equipment, life as long as I fancied, in exchange for committing myself to a project that, even in its early stages, had already tickled my sense of feat.

It was that simple.

Soon enough, I was caught up in what had to be the work of my life – afterlife – whichever. The project was enormous, with me as its head; in both the figurative and the literal sense. The sheer amount of power that came with it was overwhelming. Not the administrative power, either; when I first merged with Mother, and I saw myself do the things I could have only dreamed of doing while I lived, I became a whole league of my own. Far ahead of everything I'd ever thought was possible.

My body and my mind – a shrine in its own right to the scientific glory of success.

The inherently restraining calls upon the ethics of the Project were a calculated risk. While my mind had powered Mother, and I had used that vast capacity myself to experiment at will, those who dared raise questions outside of the spectrum of interest vanished, never to return. To me, it didn't matter. For all I knew, they had moved on to work elsewhere and it never crossed my mind that you could be more dead than you already were.

It's ironic that even after death – or especially then – it is invariably an intrinsic human trait to be blind, once the right buttons are pushed. And I still saw myself as human, if one of a somewhat altered sort.

In the end, there were three of us left; the masterminds behind the Mother. Hinote Katai - a quick, brilliant mind and my second-in-command in one highly experienced and dedicated person. Tategami Yukiko, or my partner in crime as called her in jest, whose knowledge and connection to Mother took the Project to a level I would not have achieved on my own. Finally, myself; Watari Yutaka, the Chief Researcher of The Five Generals.

As the Project progressed, we had grown close enough to almost read each other's minds. We played deep, Yukiko and I, each time going a step further as we synchronized with the system that was no longer merely something we worked on. It was life at its best. It defined us, until I could tell no difference between being in and out, except that being out left me regretful of the wasted time.

When the request of the ultimate synch came in, there was no doubt it had to be where we had been heading all along. To me, it was nothing short of the final step – I was about to go where no human had gone before me. She had hesitated; I hadn't. It would be like always; only deeper, stronger, more profound and so much more rewarding. We would reach our final goal, I told her, our lives would be complete. It was brilliant. It was _that_ simple.

Or so it seemed, until the raw sensation of my body burning in places I didn't know existed woke me up from slumber. At least _I _had returned, they told me; Tategami had no such luck. The ambition that drove us had me end up exploited to the fullest; now bound in the lab that used to be my own, once - for reasons I hadn't understood until a lot later, when the pieces of the puzzle started falling into place. That was a lesson I learned the hard way: Mothers might be sweet on their children, but the rest of the family can go bad while you're not looking.

That day was marked with a realization that dawned upon me like a bucket of cold water. I should have seen this coming.

It was _never_ that simple.

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**Author's Note:**

The rest of the story after this happens post-manga. If you want to know what happened directly after the Prologue, though (which would be approximately twenty five years prior to _Against the Wind_, tied to it in terms of the plot), read **Absit Omen**. Link in my profile. Enjoy, and don't hesitate to let me know what you think. :)


	2. Chapter One

Well, hello. Chapter one is done, at last. It was... a little hard to write. Heh. Do feel free to see the final outcome yourself, though. This picks up where 'Desperado' left Watari's point of view (after he and Tatsumi part), but I tried to write it in such way that it works as a standalone. If any case, the worst you might have to do, if you don't want to read the abovementioned story, is guess what occurred between Watari and Tatsumi to warrant those thoughts at the beginning. 

The music for this chapter is Vas - _The Reaper and the Flowers_. Really, get it if you can – it sets the mood so well it's scary. Heh. E-mail me if you want it.

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**Against the Wind**   
Chapter One 

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People, Watari had learned early, had turned masochism into a fine art. They cried in many ways, he had noticed, but what was constant in that was the reason they did. It brought release; it allowed them to slip into that numb state of oblivion as their pain took its time to subside, giving way to bittersweet reflection mingled with regret. But it hurt them all over, the act of crying itself a sign of defeat. 

And Watari Yutaka was not one to cry. 

Or so he told himself, the stern voice of logic in his mind at variance with the hot, salty tears that rolled down his face. He had not so much as thought to turn on the lights when he arrived in his apartment and sunk weakly to the floor, his long arms wrapping around his slender form to suppress the shuddering sobs. Most people's demons crawled out in the dark. His own, it seemed, had grown immune to the vanquishing power of light. And darkness, right then, felt somehow safer anyway. 

_'Why? Why did you want to know?' _

'I wanted to see the real you. The one behind the mask.' 

It was not so much about Tatsumi's words as it was about the meaning they carried. Everyone was curious, one way or another, even if nobody asked. For Tatsumi, Watari knew, it must have taken a turning point of real magnitude to step out of line past his careful defenses, to reach out for him like he did. It was only for he must have thought that, in the end, he had found a crack in Watari's shell. And he had. If only he had not misjudged what he would find inside. 

The breach of his fences had called for a retreat, and he had done no less. Most people's shells harbored their most human self; the one that, with nowhere to hide, was too quick to break. His own had been altered to be made of steel. It had been sold. It was no more his own than was the rest of him. 

Watari rose to his feet, eyes shut, fingers curled into fists. Fighting others was easy; he had only to go so far to slide ahead of them, unnoticed, and take control in his hands. Try as he might, he could not take that step past himself, and so fighting the demon within was an arduous trial. 

It was only himself, the dark counterpart to contradict each smile, yet both as tangible and real as his now-trembling hands, as his pounding heart. That demon within was no less than himself, each time quick to strike where it hurt the most. Wide awake and on a quest against his sanity, the darkness within him invaded his mind. One bit at a time, it took over whatever was left of his human self. 

Human, he thought, had to be a figure of speech in regards to him. 

He cursed under his breath as he felt that faint, tingling sensation at the back of his head. It had grown familiar in the past few weeks, each time eager to come and harder to chase away. No... he stopped, halfway across the room before he realized he had been moving at all. It had always been there, as long as he'd been dead. Ever since he had handed his body, his mind, and his very self to Enma DaiOh on a silver platter thirty years before. 

He felt himself move, his feet taking him to the desk in a few quick, automatic steps. He felt heat rush up to his face as an impulse stronger than his will forced him to sit down. He saw his hand reach out for the power switch on his computer, then hover over the keyboard, entering the passwords as it loaded up. He held his breath, squeezed his eyes shut, then gave his head a firm shake and almost by the sheer force of will, he tore his hands away from the keyboard. 

He brought them to his temples and forced his fingers to press hard as he drew long, deep breaths. It left him lightheaded, but he didn't care. That feeling of being violated from the inside had never been this strong, never this hard to control. Shuddering violently as he gasped, Watari grabbed the keyboard and slammed it onto the floor. 

The computer produced a single beep that indicated the loss of its peripherals. In a flurry of tangled hair Watari rose, spun around and stormed out of the room. 

He didn't stop until he reached the kitchen, the farthest place in his apartment. He leaned heavily over the sink, still gasping for breath. He heard something crack where the sink connected to the wall, but it held his weight. The sound of his own pounding heart was loud in his ears, deafening beyond reason, yet not quite loud enough to silence the voice in thoughts. 

_You're a monster! _

"Stop it!" he hissed through his gritted teeth, in that moment feeling a wave of nausea come over him and he heaved violently, grasping the cupboard above the sink just in time not to fall. He sucked in a sharp breath, tore away from his place and turned. Muscles tense to the point of pain, he let go of the handle too late as he staggered back. Pulled with an almost inhuman strength, the small door shot open and the cupboard disconnected from one of the hooks it hung on. A fair supply of dishes and glasses fell all around him, shattering as it hit the floor. 

Slow and menacing, a familiar voice replayed the same words over and over again. 

_In the end, you sold your head and body to JuuOhCho. Go to hell! You make me sick!_

Sold. 

_What is your price, Watari_-san 

Unwittingly kicking the broken glass on the floor, he walked out, supporting himself against the wall. _You're not even human. What is this? Don't pretend to care!_

"Stop it..." he moaned, one hand clutching at his head, the other desperate in search of something to grasp that would keep him steady. His fingers found something hard and cool; an edge of a wooden frame. He looked up. 

Staring back at him, his reflection in the mirror was dark; merely contours of shadow, yet his eyes were aflame. That fire bore regret and disgust all in one, mingled with tears that fought their way out yet never quite made it to the point of release. 

_You're a monster! _

That's right, his own inner voice chimed on, no more and no less than that. Its sound grew louder, obnoxious, tearing his mind to shreds as the voice gave way to pain; a pain he could not ignore. 

_Go to hell! You make me sick!_

He only half-registered the furious pounding of his heart against his ribs; the sound resonating through his entire being could not have gone unnoticed. His damp palms slid a few inches down the wall, fingers curled into fists, heeding the call of the sick feeling in his stomach and the shattering pain in his head. Was it worth it? No, it wasn't. He should never have come here in the first place, then none of this would have happened. He would have died human, he would not have been marked with change that could not be reversed. Nothing could be undone, not anymore. 

Ice-cold fire of fury burned in his veins; he remembered it all, each day from the first to the last, and his own obliviousness to everything but his goal. 

Breathing hard, he squeezed his eyes shut, restraining a cry only by a thread. It came out as a sudden gasp, the strain taking hold of him with strength anew. The once familiar voices screamed; You killed us, and you killed yourself, but a monster like you wouldn't die. His face twisted in pain, he bit down on his lips until he tasted blood, but it brought no change. His shoulders slumped, he hanged his head, pushing hard into the wall to stay on his feet, but even that didn't seem to be enough leverage to keep his body steady. 

With a low groan resonating in his throat, Watari slammed his fist into the mirror before him. The glass shattered, the sharp shards cutting into his hand. He almost didn't notice, didn't care. It didn't matter; not the pain that was nothing compared to the one that was killing him inside, nor the blood that trickled down the glass. One bit at a time, the searing fire of hell consumed his long-awaited soul. He wished he were dying; forever, this time. It would be so easy, but he had gone far past that. The dead had nowhere to flee. 

Crimson red stained the snow-white of his knuckles, but the pain was nothing. In the silence around him, his nearly spasmodic breathing sounded like a far-off storm, inevitable in its approach. The burning behind his eyes increased and Watari clenched his teeth, not against the pain, but against his own futile anger. 

Still pressing his injured hand into the broken glass, he looked up once more, meeting his ghost-like reflection face to face, eye to eye. What started back at him made him freeze. He held his breath. In the faint light of the outside lamps spilling in ribbons from the room behind his back, a pair of narrow, slit pupils – his own? he could have easily argued otherwise – watched him with an inhuman, indifferent look. 

Watari blinked, shook his head, blinked again. It had to be an illusion; _it had to be_, he told himself as a shuddering sigh escaped his lungs, threatening to push him over the edge. A single tear rolled down from that strange-looking eye, but it didn't change. 

_Sold._

He couldn't help but stare at that reflection that could not have been his own. Enthralled, at once he found himself drawn in by a strange, sudden spectacle of shadow dancing behind him as the air began to stir. In the broken glass, in between the drops of his own blood trickling down, he saw a faint reflection of a shadowed form, and heard a soft whisper of cloth. 

"Get a grip. This is disgusting to watch." 

A sharp turn took him face to face with the intruder, and Watari measured the tall, dark figure from head to toe. 

"Enma." 

"Come again?" The god raised a dark, elegant eyebrow, folding his arms over his broad chest. 

Amidst the battle with the overpowering nausea and pain, Watari winced at the expression painted over Enma's face. He stood there, proud and tall, but his posture screamed mockery of that grace he was said to possess. In his eyes, a contemptuous cold look held Watari's own blurred gaze in an iron grasp. 

His stomach twisted into a painful knot, but even Watari knew better than to challenge the god. He swallowed down his pride and inclined his head. 

"Enma DaiOh-sama." 

The floor whirled beneath his feet, but he maintained his composure in the face of the Lord of Meifu. He dared not think of the reasons Enma had come; his mind had barely managed to clear enough to notice and feel there was still blood trickling down his hand. He looked down; the sleeve of his white shirt was stained dark red. The discomfort was there, even though he knew his body was already healing. 

"What is this?" The god's voice was demanding and cold. He cast a critical look around the hall and Watari, who still found it hard to keep his body from trembling in a blend of anger and shame, felt that piercing gaze stop and cut right through him. 

"How... human of you, Watari Yutaka-kun," Enma continued. Deliberate, aiming straight for the core. "You almost had me convinced." 

His hands clenched into fists so tight that the only just healed skin broke again, but Watari not so much as twitched as he lifted his head, ever so slowly, focusing to meet Enma's gaze. A flood of words swept around his still shaky thoughts, his inner voice crying and something in him cringed. The god's words found their mark in his consciousness, but he held his tongue. 

Almost without a sound, Enma closed the distance between them in a few graceful, unhurried steps. His long black hair shimmered as he moved, the unearthly blend of shadow and light playing at his features carved in fine stone. Just as Watari remembered. The dark robes disguised a lithe body, far taller and broader than Watari's own slender form. He reached out, as soon as he came to a halt mere inches from the man, and lifted Watari's chin with a long, slim finger. 

"It has been a while," he spoke in a cool voice, plain and devoid of emotion. 

Watari looked up. Staring down at him, Enma held him captive with his will alone. Suddenly he knew how much he loathed his state; a dog on a leash could do so much as bark. 

"Not nearly long enough." 

Enma let out a short laugh, as emotionless as his voice had been. "Truly. What are mere thirty years compared to eternity. Do you still measure time in the human ways, Yutaka-kun? Or is that too painful." 

Watari endured that stare, but as he did he felt his body shiver. He couldn't help it. 

His head was spinning. Enma's hand felt cold on his face; like the touch of someone who was truly dead. The god had felt him shiver; it brought a little smirk to that handsome face. It still lingered there a moment later as Watari looked away. 

"Was this your doing?" he asked, surprised at how weak he sounded. 

Enma's hand brushed across his face. "Come now; what kind of a question is that?" His fingers ran slowly up his cheek, over his eyes. So cold; a caress of death. 

Watari gave his head a light shake. He had questions indeed, but something in Enma's face told him it wasn't worth to ask. He tried to ignore that ice-cold touch on his skin even now that the offending hand was already gone, but the memory was strong and refused to go away. 

"Your problem, my young friend, is that you think too much. You _think_ you know. You _think_ you understand. You _believe_ the upper hand in yours." Enma's face reverted back to its initial distant cold. "Do you not?" 

Against his will, Watari swallowed audibly. He had been used, yes; yet his logic told him he was equally to blame. He had let his ambition loose, and the Mother was a playground from hell. 

"How disappointing." Enma gave him the look of pure contempt. "I was warned you might plot against me, but I gave you a chance. Such a betrayal of trust." 

His eyes snapped wide open and Watari felt a surge of anger boil the blood in his veins. "Trust? We had a deal. It was--" 

"So we did, and what became of it?" 

"Nothing," he snapped, careless of just how much anger had seeped through that one word. 

"On the contrary." Enma stepped away, far enough to stop threatening his personal space, but it was a small difference. "Look around you. Is this not brilliant?" 

Recognizing a rhetorical question when he heard one, Watari cast a brief glance around the hall anyway. Fear tasted bitter in his dry mouth as he thought Enma found real pleasure in what he saw. 

"You seem quiet." The god's tone was matter-of-fact, with a causal note that spoke of mockery. "Surely you haven't been tamed _so_ much?" A step forth, and a hand wandered to run through Watari's tangled hair. 

His face hardened; the scientist's gaze was fixed at something straight ahead, looking not at Enma, but past him. 

"Is there a problem?" 

Watari stood straight, his muscles tense, purposefully avoiding Enma's enquiring stare. When he spoke, his voice was cold and steady. "Apart from your intrusion? None whatsoever." 

The god let out something that bore an uncanny resemblance to a snort. "Truly. You damage your house as a pastime." 

His breathing was even, but Watari felt as though he fought under water, his body crying for air. It had been a game, from the first day on. He could only guess the reasons Enma had chosen than night for his move, but the god was there. His words, his entire demeanor, told him the game must have picked up its pace once again. 

"What do you want?" he dared. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Enma's eyebrow climbing into his hairline. He expected actions, but got only words. 

"Is that a way to speak to your Lord?" 

"Is that a way to enter someone's house?" Watari snapped back, pointedly yet now without anger. "You haven't taken your shoes off." 

Enma laughed; a dark, humorless sound. "Still sharp-tongued, I'll give you that. As for your question..." he paused and fixed his piercing jet-black eyes on Watari's, forcing him to meet them. "I find it hard to believe you haven't figured it out yet." 

Under the pressure, Watari returned the stare but said nothing. 

Of course he knew. It was only a matter of time. He had sealed his fate thirty years before; too young and too blinded to have seen the double bottom. One way or another, he had walked away. It was beyond naivety to hope Enma had really allowed him to leave. 

"Allow me to enlighten you, then." With a dangerous spark in his eyes, Enma took Watari by one stiff arm and, with unexpected gentleness, led him through the hallway to the living room. 

Watari spared the damaged computer a brief glance, all the while weighing his options against one another. He found there were not many options at all; for now, he resolved to just playing along. 

"As you were so gracious to point out before, Watari-kun, we have made a deal. You were granted all your initial requests, as well as all of those you made afterwards, in exchange for your full cooperation." 

In a flash of memory in his mind, Watari saw the events from thirty years ago as though it had happened just the day before. He remembered confusion being replaced with hope, then excitement as the offer was put forth. His genuine delight as the deal was made. 

He shuddered. 

It flooded his mind again, the sheer force of anger and disgust that filled him unchangeably every single time those memories returned. "You forgot to mention you would cheat me out of it." 

"Cheat?" Enma stopped and forced Watari to halt as well with a sharp pull to his arm. "It was _you_ who left before the deal was fulfilled. _You_ broke the rules." 

Watari's thoughts whirled. The _rules_. "What did you expect? It wasn't supposed to be like that. What you did was… inhumane!" Rage seeped through him at the sight of the utter obliviousness in Enma's countenance. Watari pulled his arm free from the god's grasp and stared at him expectantly, a cold fire burning in his amber eyes. 

Enma's lips twitched in a quasi-smile. "You're not exactly in a position to judge what is human and what is not, are you now?" 

Watari fought the urge to throw himself at the black-haired man and strangle him with his bare hands, but thought better of it. Those words burned with searing fire in his mind; he almost felt it on his skin. 

_You're not even human anymore! _

"Perhaps I'm not. If _that_ is the case, then neither are _you_." 

The movement was instant. Watari's eyes snapped open instinctively as a hand caught him by the throat, the hold just tight enough to prevent him from writhing, enough to make him unable to take easy breaths. In the faint light he noticed how Enma's eyes had changed; a strange, unearthly glow had set them aflame, a second before Watari's own vision blurred. 

"Next time, try harder." 

He didn't have the mind to ponder those strange words; only their malicious tone still rang in his ears. As the air escaped his lungs and Watari found himself unable to draw another breath, his hand caught Enma's arm in a desperate gesture of hope beyond reason that he could break free. 

He was sure he heard laughter, but his head was spinning and it no longer mattered whether any of that was real at all. 

Enma pushed him hard, and Watari felt himself sail through the air as though he were a doll. He yelped in pain as he crashed into the wall and fell, hitting the floor below. He squeezed his eyes shut against the pulsating sensation in his arm, caught behind his back at an odd angle. He heard footsteps, but something told him not to move, despite his body's protests against such an uncomfortable position. 

A pair of hands grabbed him under the arms and pulled him up, then pressed his back against the wall. He winced at the sudden discovery of the new sources of pain, but he restrained the cry that begged to be released. 

"Perhaps you wish to know what mistake you've made." Enma's voice sounded – no, _felt_ – as though it originated in Watari's mind rather than the god's mouth, just inches away from his face. Watari's only response was a sharp intake of breath as those hands squeezed and pushed him harder into the wall. 

"You thought you could outsmart me." Enma sneered. "Oh, it was amusing to watch your little escapades inside Mother, but you should have used the _front_ door." 

Somewhere at the back of his mind, Watari remembered the various backdoors he had created there, a long time ago, before he knew he would need them. A far-off realization that they were not safe doorways at all sent a cold shiver down his spine. He should have guessed, _damn it_, he should have known. 

"Oh yes, they have been found. Your little sneaky ways in. You're not as smart as you think you are." 

A sharp pull tore him away from the wall and sent him down to the floor again. A moan of pain escaped his lips. At this rate, Enma could have enjoyed himself like that all night, giving his body a moment to heal, just to hurt him again. 

Breathing burned his lungs, but the need of air surpassed discomfort. He waited; silence stretched long between the surges of pain that coursed through his limbs. Watari forced his eyes open; it proved to be quite a task. He looked up. 

Enma stood above him, watching him with a face he couldn't read at all. For all he knew, the god could knock him out then and there, and force his connection to Mother open again. It _must_ have been all about that, he thought. He had gotten away the first time, by the sheer force of will. He had been getting away for the past thirty years, never certain when the tables would turn. 

Was it now? Watari wasn't sure at all he even wanted to know. 

His eyes met Enma's; cold and unforgiving. The look in them was that of someone who would stop at nothing to achieve his goals. 

The brittle silence shattered. 

At once, an invisible force lifted him off the ground. Watari gasped; for a few unbearably long seconds he hung in the air, as though he were flying, but he had lost control of his limbs. His head fell forward, his arms stretched out against his will. He had only caught a minute glimpse of the vicious light in Enma's eye before the god sent him flying up and away with nothing but the force of his will. For a second there he felt nothing; all sensation escaped him but his thoughts were crystal clear. 

Before he knew, he crashed into the wall again; nearly senseless, his arms still outstretched. His head felt so heavy; then his senses returned. He wished they hadn't. He could do so much as cringe while he wanted nothing but to fall into dark oblivion, but his mind was screaming and Watari forced himself to focus, if only just a bit. 

Out of nowhere, countess thin wires sprung and leaped at his body stretched against the cold wall, binding him, cutting into his skin. Something punctured his arms, his chest; like a thousand needless, quick and precise, merciless and cold against his burning flesh. 

A groan escaped his lips, muscles flexing instinctively against the cruel assault. Then he felt a cold hand on his face, and everything grew still. 

"I could force you." Enma's tone was nothing short of cheeky. "But I know you enjoy a good challenge. I would dare not belittle you like that; you, an old player in this long-term game." 

"Let go," Watari whispered hoarsely, fighting for air. He felt his stomach turn; Enma's breath on his lips was making him sick. 

"I could. But I won't. You, my golden bird, are too valuable. You are _mine_. You gave yourself to me. Your body, your head, your fate is in _my_ hands. Have you forgotten?" 

The bonds tightened as the god spoke, squeezing a low groan of pain out of the exhausted scientist. His body trembled; his skin began to go numb yet the pain had grown no less. Enma caught a handful of his hair and pulled up his head. 

"Does it hurt? You should remember this pain." 

He did remember. Oh, hell, he _did_. 

"I will enjoy watching you come to me. You _will_ finish what you started, Watari Yutaka-kun." 

"Never," he hissed through gritted teeth. 

"No?" Enma laughed. "We shall see about that." 

The god stepped away. The wires released him and Watari's limp body collapsed on the floor. 

He lay still, lips parted, a fall of tangled hair clutching at his face. The floor was soothingly cool against his cheek, but his body burned with a living fire. He focused on breathing, ignoring Enma completely. Silently he prayed, for the first time in years, that this hell would be over soon. 

Long black hair brushed against his skin. Enma crouched at his side, watching him with a faint amusement in his now-black eyes. 

"It's ironic," he said, swiping strands of gold from Watari's face, "how human you appear, even though you're not. Tell me; how does it feel to live a constant lie among those who, every single day, put their trust in you?" 

Watari's body shuddered in an involuntary sob. _Enough._

Enma shook his head. "It must be hard. They have grown to like you, the freak that you are." 

Those words stung, and suddenly that pain in his heart suppressed its physical counterpart. How true, Watari thought to himself. Much as he loathed that thought, there was no denying that Enma was right. 

"How far will you go to save them from harm?" The tone of that voice rang with a note of genuine curiosity. Enma tipped his head, falling into silence that demanded an answer. 

Watari let his eyes slide shut. He was tired; too tired to dwell on his anger with the god anymore. "As far... as it takes," he whispered, lost between two kinds of pain of nearly equal strength. 

Enma nodded. "So I thought." He rose and turned around. "By the way. Tatsumi Seiichirou is a curious type, is he not?" 

The Shadow Master's name forced Watari's mind back into full focus. Somehow, he knew it had not been said for nothing. His chest grew tight with a sudden fear. 

"Do you think he would wonder if he saw you like this? Poor old secretary, he worries so much," Enma said casually as he walked away. 

"Well, you'll find out soon enough." 


	3. Chapter Two

If you read Desperado, you will find a scene from there in this chapter, only written from Watari's point of view, this time. That's where we get to the point where real new things begin :D Enjoy.

**Anukaliate:** Thanks for the review :D   
**Lokemele:** Heheh, now that's some bribe, there. Accepted. :P Here's the next part.

The music for this, if you care: Vas - _Feast of Silence_, Yami no Matsuei OST - _Unmei no Kaikou_, Dead Can Dance - _Summoning of the Muse_. Comment/IM/e-mail if you want it.

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**Against the Wind**  
Chapter Two

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The echo of Enma's steps resonated in the otherwise silent room. It traveled deep through Watari's body, multiplying the pulsating pain that roamed through every fiber of his flesh. The god was gone, yet his presence lingered. He could feel it; he could almost smell it in the air. He felt the residue of Enma's deathlike touch all over his skin. The metallic taste of blood in his dry mouth made him sick.

Watari moaned as he moved, every twitch of muscle taking the pain to a new level. Eyes squeezed shut, he held his breath as he forced himself to roll onto his back. He let the air out in a now-unrestrained cry of pure agony.

It hurt.

The window trembled as he cried out, then everything fell silent again. Watari clenched his teeth, bracing himself against the pain that could not be helped till it passed on its own. Next thing he knew, streaks of hot, salty tears ran down his face and sank into his hair.

Slowly, he opened his eyes. He tried to push his mind past the pain and think, but it proved impossible; for now, at least. So he lay still, feeling the minute trembling of muscle against his will. Only one thing proved to be a match for the waves of pain it caused; Enma's words rang loud in his ears, that voice as clear as though the god were still beside him, cutting his soul open with his blade of bitter truth.

Yes, he had kept the events from thirty years ago to himself. Not just because he had been clearly ordered to do so; he would not have spoken of that if the order had been the opposite. Over time, things had changed; he was less than proud of having...

Watari's thoughts came to a sudden halt. Proud? He was disgusted. With himself. He had not so much as given himself away; he had sold his body, and with it his soul and his very self. That's what he had done. He found no other words.

Few things he had done afterwards had been a lie, but he felt like a traitor nonetheless. The memory of his lapse of self control back in Kamakura was fresh in his mind; it had to happen right in front of Tatsumi, didn't it? Of all people, it had to be him. And now, Tatsumi was coming, and he would...

His eyes snapped open as the thought sank in.

Tatsumi was coming?

Something told him Enma had not lied. He knew well that the god thrived on manipulation and spite and ambition that rivaled his own, but Watari knew he was not one to lie. He had not come to take him. He had only set the wheels of his intricate plan into motion to draw a full circle of trap around the one who had once escaped his nets.

The realization had him gasp, and a burning sensation tore his lungs apart. Watari rolled back on his side and coughed up blood. Figures.

He should be healing, as the Shinigami did. Yet as the minutes dragged at a mercilessly slow pace and he felt no change, dark clouds of worry cast over his mind.

_Do you think he would wonder if he saw you like this? _

Enma's voice mocked him in his thoughts. Tatsumi would not leave until he told him the truth; the one thing Watari knew he could never do.

He had made that his top priority, way back when – none of his friends would ever get involved. Well aware that Enma was not beyond using them as a method of persuasion, Watari had silently hoped it would not come to that. Now he knew he had miscalculated on more grounds than one. His backdoors to Mother had been compromised.

Had he known that before, he would never have dragged Tatsumi into it like that. It was just a game, to show the Shadow Master there were things at work he knew nothing of, that he should stand his guard. That his superiors were not beyond games and dirty tricks themselves.

He had been certain they had left no trace. He had done that countless times before, always the same way. He had felt too safe... That _was_ what gave him advantage, once. Now, he thought bitterly to himself as he fixed his blank stare on the ceiling above, not really seeing and not caring either, they knew his every move. If he knew the mind behind this, which he did, all of it had been recorded and thoroughly analyzed to predict what he would do.

As it was, he knew his thinking patterns worked in Mother more than well; he had implemented that himself. The simulations he had run had shown that while the system still lacked the creativity to outsmart him, it did too good a job at coming close to predicting his moves. Once, he had been proud of it. _Once. _

It had backfired in more ways than he had ever imagined. _Well, Yutaka, _ he thought to himself, probing the floor around him to check if his sore arms could support his weight, _you're fucked_.

He found his left arm still out of use; a sharp pain shot through it as he tried to rise. Uncertainty rode him hard; Watari began to realize he had no chance to make himself presentable before the Shadow Master came. At first, he thought not to let him in at all, should Enma's words prove true. He had abandoned that idea, albeit somewhat reluctantly, since he knew he could not show up at work like that the next day and look Tatsumi in the eye, pretending nothing had happened. The healing powers seemed to have been impaired. His body was a dead giveaway.

And it hurt just to think that whatever he did, he would have to lie again. Again and again... he had sunk too deep, gone too far to break that vicious circle of lies and deceit.

It must have been just what Enma wanted him to do. He could not deny he had done that before - made sacrifices for what he thought was the greater good. And so Tatsumi had unwittingly become the bait. Had the Mother told them he would sacrifice the man? Watari laughed bitterly and immediately curled up in pain, coughing up more blood. _No such thing, Enma DaiOh, _ he thought.

It was a long shot, but he hoped the system still drew on what he had given it thirty years before, that he had not been any further used while he thought he was exploiting it himself. He was not that man they knew, not anymore. That Watari had died, as had his partner in crime.

He hissed as his body protested the movement, but it obeyed and slowly he managed to sit, breathing hard, even though it hurt. Small beads of sweat danced on his face. He touched his chest, almost falling flat again with nothing to support him. He felt the deep punctured marks on his skin; they were sticky where the blood still flowed and Watari frowned. At least ten minutes had passed; that sort of injury should have healed by now.

It hadn't. A deep frown creased his forehead and Watari pulled at the fabric, tearing it off the spots where the already dried blood glued it to his skin.

It didn't look good. At that rate, he knew, he would still look battered when Tatsumi came, and that could happen any moment now. Not trusting himself to walk, he put as much effort as he could spare into moving himself across the room to a small closet by the couch. He knew he had nothing to clean himself up with at hand; nothing but maybe a towel and a change of clothes, and even that was sparse. He kept most of his everyday belongings in his lab.

He had never cursed his habits as much as he did now.

Slowly he picked himself up and reached for the handle on the door, but he lost balance and landed flat on the hard floor. A moan of pain escaped him; he focused on breathing just to wait out the worst surge of pain. Carefully now, he grasped the edge of the couch to support himself and tried again. He felt lightheaded and weak, but managed to stay on his feet long enough to pull the door open.

Slumping down again, he noticed with a small sigh of relief that breathing had become easier and his heart was no longer pounding furiously against his broken ribs. He knew he should take it easy and just lie down to give his body a better chance to heal, but he had no time. He reached into the closet and pulled out whatever he could find. Those few pieces of clothing would have to do.

He cast a worried look at the door. _Take your time, Tatsumi. If you've never been late, make it your first time, _ he thought and set to work.

Movement meant pain, but he didn't let it hinder what he had to do. It took forever to unbutton his shirt; his fingers were almost numb. His own hands felt cold on his chest when he touched it again; a welcome cold, for a change. Not without a hint of dismay he noticed that some spots were still bleeding; the needles had been thick and they had gone deep.

Just like that time...

Watari shuddered and gave his head a firm shake. Some experiment, that. He forced the bitter memory back to the farthest corner of his mind and focused on the task at hand.

He wiped himself clean as much as he could with the dry cloth, pressing it to the still bleeding spots to force them closed. He left it there, and reached for another piece from the pile on the floor. Rolling up his sleeves, he winced at the sight of the ugly bruised marks the wires had left to accompany the punctures. Those had ceased to bleed; Watari scrubbed some of the blood off his skin and rolled the sleeves back down. Tatsumi didn't need to see this; he would have enough to explain as it was.

Little as he moved, it left him exhausted and somewhat out of breath. He leaned back against the couch and let his eyes slide shut. He needed that moment of rest; being too hard on his abused body would do him no good.

He thought back to the chance meeting with Tatsumi earlier that night. It seemed obvious now why Enma was right. If he knew the Shadow Master at all – which he did, more that he'd admit – Tatsumi had found himself guilty of trespassing his private grounds. No doubt he would come, the good soul he was, to apologize.

Watari sighed. A part of him longed to see him, and perhaps to share, at last, the burdens he carried. He found it out of question and hushed that small voice, quenched the fire it lit. He couldn't bring himself to think about it now lest his resolve break.

Shifting his weight, he leaned heavily on the couch and pulled himself up. Had it not been for the closet within his reach he would have fallen, but he caught it, waiting out the wave of dizziness. Slowly, he took one step, then another, and released his hold. Staggering, he reached the wall. Using it as a support, he made his way to the bathroom.

It was dark, but he knew better than to look in the mirror again. He didn't need the sight he would find there, and time was ticking out. He left the water running for a while till it was icy-cold. It felt good on his skin; he welcomed the relief from the constant burning there that wouldn't go away. He splashed the water on himself, careless of soaking his clothes and hair as he washed his face. Some more blood came off as he ran a wet hand under his shirt, soothing his tender skin.

Trembling with the sheer effort it took to stand, Watari closed the tap and leaned against the wall. Things just _had_ to get complicated again, didn't they? he thought, willing his anger away. It was not the time to rage over the irony of fate, his own carelessness, or the mix of both that had brought him here.

Slowly he walked back to the room, stumbling over whatever scattered items Enma had left in his wake. He didn't bother to look; the place was altogether a mess.

He flipped the light switch. Nothing. Looking up, he saw the lamp had shattered. An eyebrow shot up; he didn't remember when _that_ had happened.

A quick look around revealed what he'd missed before – the coffee table lay upside down, his reading lamp was on the floor. Frowning, he reached down to lift it. He groaned as the flames of pain shot up again and he instinctively reached out his hands to keep himself from falling.

The crack of only just mended bones drew a loud hiss out of him, and Watari bit down on his lips, hard. Carefully, he eased himself onto the floor and turned on the light.

He sighed in resignation at the sight of the picture of chaos that was once his neatly kept living room. It must have been the force of Enma's power the god had unleashed on him that caught his belongings in a whirlwind that scattered them all around. Several framed pictures of his friends that once hung on the walls had shared the same fate. Half-expecting to see a broken window behind him, he looked back, but found it surprisingly intact.

He could now take a closer look at the damage. The next thing he saw made him sick. Dark smudges stained the white wall and the floor where he had collapsed as Enma let him go. The clothes he had used to clean his wounds lay scattered on the floor, among the broken glass.

His breath quickened, anger fighting its way back to the surface and winning, the more he looked around. He'd done it on purpose, that scum of a god. Watari would heal, but the damage was done. Enma's message was now crystal clear. You will not get away, the bloody stains seemed to whisper, the shards of glass around him glimmering in silent agreement. _You are mine. _

_I could force you. _ Enma's voice rang clear in his ears. _But I know how you enjoy a good challenge. I will enjoy watching you come to me. _

Nearly shaking with anger, Watari let it loose and the small lamp flew across the room, shattering to pieces as it crashed into the wall. Darkness descended again. He buried his face in his hands.

A knock on the door startled him out of the hell of his thoughts.

His heart skipped a beat, breath catching in his throat and for a split second his mind turned blank. He looked up, staring through the darkness at the door that, at a distance, was merely a blur. Pushing past the pain he scrambled to his feet, hands trembling, blood pounding in his ears. He tried not to shuffle his feet as he walked uncertainly towards the door, gathering the courage to meet his partner face to face.

He stopped halfway and squeezed his eyes shut, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. Maybe Tatsumi would leave it be. Maybe he was about to run into a trap whence there was no return. Perhaps the Shadow Master didn't care as much as Watari had thought, and would simply walk away?

"Can't do this," he whispered to himself, shaking his head. Hidden behind a fall of tangled, half-wet hair, his cheeks were burning.

_How does it feel to live a constant lie? _

Watari froze and his face turned to stone. Liar. You don't trust your partner. You don't trust anyone. _He_ knows this. _He_ will use it...

Another knock echoed in the hall. Watari shivered. He could do this. He could explain this. Without the light, Tatsumi would not see much. He owed it to him, this little bit of himself, the tiny bit of truth. By morning he would heal, and the secret would be safe.

He crossed the distance and stopped in front of the door. Resting a trembling hand on the knob, he let out a deep sigh to calm his nerves and schooled his face to an expression as neutral as he could manage.

He heard the echo of Tatsumi's slow steps behind the door and hesitated. As if on cue, a wave of dizziness washed over him and he rested heavily against the door.

The click of shoes against the floor outside had faded. Watari took a deep breath and pulled the door open, resting his arms against the doorframe for support.

The Shadow Master stood in the twilight of the hall, his back turned. Watari's heart skipped another beat.

"Tatsumi."

"Watari-san," he started.

He couldn't help but catch the weary note in the tone of his partner's voice.

"I came to apologize. It was--"

Tatsumi broke off as he turned to face him. The scientist's gaze dropped under the sheer load of shock in his partner's face.

"Watari." In a few long, quick strides the man was at his side. "Are you alright?"

He opened his mouth to speak but words were lost to him the moment he saw that same horrified look blooming once again on Tatsumi's face. The Shadow Master looked past him, no doubt already seeing the chaos behind him. Tatsumi's gaze shifted between the inside of his apartment and Watari himself. Something in him broke; the desperation written there was so obvious it stung.

"Are you hurt?"

Watari's inner voice laughed bitterly. _Oh, Tatsumi. _

"Yutaka?"

He shook his head 'no', aware how futile and hopeless that lie had to be, but he could do no more. The way his name was said, that unmistakable concern and fear underlining its tone, cut through him as easily as a hot knife through butter.

A pair of gentle hands took him by the shoulders. Watari suppressed a shiver; that warmth from the other man was so inviting, irresistible. He didn't protest as Tatsumi drew him closer to himself, in a warm embrace that spoke volumes even as neither of them said a word.

Watari bit his lips, the burning behind his eyes assaulting him without mercy as he sunk into those arms. He held his breath, aware that he was trembling from the effort just to stand and emotions that were so rare burning in his chest. He fought with himself; one part of him wished to pull away, another - to let Tatsumi hold him, to forget it all here and now and just be, just breathe, just live.

It felt too good; he was losing himself in that man who was unaware of the fire he had touched. It couldn't last. Seiichirou couldn't burn.

"Tatsumi," he said quietly against the other's neck. "You should go." _Go now, before it's too late._ He felt the arms around him tense ever so slightly, the minute shift of stance betraying Tatsumi's surprise.

"It's alright," he said levelly, "You can go. You shouldn't have come here in the first place."

Tatsumi didn't push him away, as he had expected, or maybe just silently hoped. He just drew back a little and looked him straight in the eye.

"No."

That single word held a note of determination, mirrored in the depths of the Shadow Master's eyes. Tatsumi walked his own path, his choices were his alone.

"I'm not going anywhere. You can kick me out and I'll keep coming back. Your choice."

_It was my choice, once, and I made it, _ Watari thought to himself. He held up that stare, a silent plea in it; so much gentler than the words he knew were only true. How much easier it would be if they weren't.

"I don't know if you'll ever tell me what caused this, what... happened here, but it's irrelevant right now."

Watari's eyes watered; he couldn't help it. A voice in his mind screamed against that weakness, but he was so tired, and Tatsumi...

"Please."

...Tatsumi pleaded with him not to run.

"Let's go inside. I..." he paused.

Watari looked away.

"I want to help."

_You can't help me, _ his thoughts wailed and he shook his head. _Run while you can. _

But then, was there anywhere to run anymore?

He let Tatsumi lead him inside. Despite the pose that was Tatsumi's usual, everyday sternness, he was a caring man, not one to leave another in need. He had learned his lesson when he nearly let Tsuzuki die in Touda's flames, and Watari knew his views had changed. Tatsumi would not leave, not now. He could only stand and watch the Shadow Master take the matters in his own hands.

He had asked no questions, but Watari knew it was only a matter of time. The pain that wrenched his body worked well enough to remind him that the state of his apartment was not the only sign of what had happened there. What Tatsumi had made of it Watari couldn't guess; the man was busily cleaning up the couch and said nothing at all. He hadn't asked, much to his relief. If he had...

If asked, Watari knew would have to lie. Again. So much for honesty. The burden of deceit weighed upon him like never before. He had denied any and all emotional attachment for that reason alone. Then he saw through Tatsumi's shell, and his resolve had gone up in flames.

With a quiet sigh, Watari bowed his head and stood there, staring at the floor. So much for trust.

Tatsumi rose and closed the distance between them. He took his partner by the arm. "Come," he said quietly, "You look like you need to sit down."

Still on weak legs, Watari made his way to the now-clean couch, led by Tatsumi who almost radiated an aura of gentleness, although mingled with a strange kind of fear. It was all but there, in the way he held his still sore arm, in how he helped him sit down, how those warm hands lingered. A stray strand of brown hair brushed against Watari's skin, and he shivered.

Tatsumi knelt and took the scientist's hands in his. "I'm going to go to the kitchen now, and make us some tea," he said.

Watari nodded. His stomach twisted into a knot when he remembered what Tatsumi would find once he entered there. The Shadow Master rose in a quiet, fluid move, leaving him alone.

_There, Enma, _ he thought, brushing his hand across his face, _that's what he would do. Happy now? _

He refused to let anger claim his mind again. Emotion was blinding, he had learned the hard way a long time ago. Now, he could only hope Tatsumi's usual absolute regard for another's right to choose and go their own way would win over curiosity and stop his inquiries. He had to wonder if it mattered at all; if he knew Tatsumi, the man would go out of his way to solve the problems at hand anyway.

Only this was no ordinary case, no problem with an easy solution Tatsumi could find. Unless...

The sound of quiet steps across the floor pulled him out of his thoughts as Tatsumi returned with a mug of steaming tea. Only then Watari realized how thirsty he was, but he couldn't bring himself to reach for the drink. Weariness held him fast in its grip, his body pleading with him to finally let it rest.

Tatsumi seated himself next to him, silent, yet tension was obvious in the way he held himself. Watari felt his questioning eyes rest on him and stay, expectant and uncertain at once. He kept his own gaze fixed on something on the far wall across the room, not really seeing nor looking at anything in particular. He gathered his thoughts. Such silence that rang in his ears could not be left unanswered.

Yet he found no words; for the first time in decades, he found himself unable to give an easy lie, an easy smile. Pretense escaped him and left him with a mind full of bitter regret and fear of where this would lead.

"Ambition..." he whispered, not fully aware it had been aloud until he felt the Shadow Master shift beside him and heard his slightly sharper intake of breath. Maybe... Maybe that could save him.

"It leads straight to madness."

Tatsumi shook his head. "You are not mad."

"No?" Watari turned to look his partner in the eye, putting all he had into what he was about to say. Not exactly a lie, he thought sourly.

"Look around you, Tatsumi. Doesn't this look like something only a madman would do?"

Slowly shaking his head again in protest to those words, Tatsumi managed a simple, "No."

Watari let out a humorless laugh, mentally crossing fingers that it would be convincing, that Tatsumi would look no further. "Then what does it look like to you?" he asked.

"It looks like a side effect of holding too much pain on too short a leash, for a very long time. And you look like someone who lost it, for a moment there, while trying to be everything for everyone but not for himself."

Watari suppressed a sigh. It left a bitter aftertaste, yet he preferred the man to think he had simply lost it. He had not the strength to make up some elaborate lie that would probably be lost on him anyway in the long run. He had to settle for the simple solutions, for now.

Tatsumi's hand wandered to his shoulder and rested there, his gentle fingers tracing a circled path. "You don't have to say anything," he said in a quiet, soothing voice. "I don't think _I_ could say anything to make it better, now. For that, I am sorry."

_No, Tatsumi, _ Watari thought, willing emotions gone. I _am sorry. _

"And for earlier, too," Tatsumi continued his unnecessary apology. "But can I... at least... hold you?"

He could feel his resolve melt under that gaze, that kindness in Tatsumi's eyes a reminder of how much Watari had come to care for that strange, troubled man. He knew it was wrong. Another mistake. One more step closer towards the brink of disaster, into Enma's trap set up thirty years before. And yet he would walk right into it to save that moment in time, the worst and the best at once. He heard himself whisper, "Please."

Leaning into Tatsumi's arms open wide just for him, Watari closed his eyes. He could only savor that warmth, calmed by the Shadow Master's slowly rocking him to sleep.

The call of his mind to stay watchful was all but lost on him.

--

Watari woke to the darkness of the room, in the arms of shadows and their master both. Tatsumi stirred lightly in his sleep. His calm, even breath was a touch of a feather, soft against his cheek. His body still hurt. He couldn't tell how long he had slept, or when he had slipped into darkness at all. He remembered thinking how it could not be; how ironic was fate to lead him into this man's arms on that most unfortunate of nights.

Tatsumi had stayed, but Watari couldn't decide if it was good at all. Soon the sun would rise, and with it another day when he would have to try his best to find a way out.

No, he thought to himself with a too familiar sting of regret, _no way out for you. _ He would just make sure Tatsumi never followed; how, he didn't know.

Careful not to wake him, Watari rose to his feet. Darkness danced before his eyes, his body displeased with the sudden change. He looked back at the sleeping man and a small smile graced his lips. It had to take such mess to end up like this. What a shame.

Quietly he crossed the room and leaned against the window. The cold glass soon warmed against his forehead and Watari sighed. Rolling up one sleeve, he noted the dark bruises still very much there; the punctured marks had faded but he had not healed.

"Nice move," he whispered under his breath and gave his head a light shake. He should have guessed. When Enma made a move, it went exactly where he wanted to strike.

He spared the thought to leave a minute or two, but it made little sense. Nothing would prompt Tatsumi to look into the matter more than waking up alone in Watari's damaged living room, the owner himself gone.

On top of everything, he refused to run. Once tangled in the nets of that game, he knew better than to think he could get away.

Back by the couch, he sifted through the pile of clothes, finding one shirt he hadn't stained with blood. He took off his torn one, wincing at the sight of the bruised skin underneath. The pain was mostly gone; his body had been healing, but not fast enough. He felt strange; almost lethargic, as though all around him had heeded the call of darkness and fallen asleep. He sat down and watched Tatsumi's peaceful face with warm, gentle eyes. He had seen so much, that man, in his time. Watari understood, even though he kept it to himself, the conflicts that drove him, the thorns in his heart. Each of them had their own, although different, that kept them bound to Earth. Their souls wouldn't rest.

No, he would not run. It didn't make sense. Whatever would come, it had to be alright. Somehow. Someday.

Slowly he leaned back, resting against the cushions as his fingers worked the buttons of his shirt. Tatsumi's warmth radiated so far, beckoning to him, a simple call for closeness he wanted so much. He had watched that man for so long, and now they were here. At any other time, he would have been happy. But there was always an 'if only', it seemed.

Tatsumi turned with a deep sigh, and his arm came to rest across Watari's chest. A new wave of warmth ran through his skin, deep across his body and before he knew, he had to blink back unwanted tears.

"Eh, Seiichirou," he whispered inaudibly, giving in to the urge to stroke the other's hand. "You've made a weakling out of the old me."

It could be just this once, and never again, he thought, leaning in to rest his head against Tatsumi's shoulder.

_Just once... _

--

_Let go! _

_The wires retreated with a hiss, hanging in midair. He was falling, but the ground didn't hinder his rapid descent... down, down and away. _

_Let go... _

A violent shudder brought Watari back to his senses. A deep groan resonated in his throat. He swallowed hard; the dryness in his mouth and some bitter aftertaste left him slightly nauseous. His eyes snapped open and he looked around. The first seconds back in the waking world had him breathing hard, unsure where he was.

_Tatsumi... _

The Shadow Master stood, erect and still, just a few steps away from the couch. Watari looked up, squinting a little and forced himself to give a small, bright smile.

"Morning." His voice sounded hoarse; he coughed to clear his throat.

Tatsumi inclined his head but didn't respond. Watari habitually felt around himself for his glasses. He caught a fluid movement out of the corner of his eye. Tatsumi reached out his hand, holding the spectacles out to the still drowsy blonde.

"Oh." Watari smiled. "Thank you."

He wiped his face with his hand and rubbed his eyes before pushing the glasses up his nose. Then he glanced back up and froze.

Tatsumi's face resembled a stone; a pair of piercing blue eyes fixed on him in a cold stare, his arms crossed on his chest.

Watari frowned. "Tatsumi?"

They stared at each other for a few long seconds before Watari's gaze dropped under the force of those sapphire eyes, and at once he understood.

His shirt, although clean, was open; the sleeves rolled up. Bruised and punctured, Watari's skin presented a curious sight. He cursed violently in his mind, falling back on the cushions.

"Care to explain this?" Tatsumi's voice, as cold as his eyes, held a barely masked trembling, just an undertone.

Watari looked away. "There's nothing to explain."

Tatsumi's fingers curled into fists. "The hell there isn't. _Eight hours, _ Watari."

A pair of golden eyebrows shot up; he sent the Shadow Master a quizzical look.

"I came here _eight_ hours ago. You said you weren't hurt?"

The accusation in Tatsumi's voice cut right through him. The man wasn't blind, nor was he stupid. _And you're a filthy liar. _

"Guess I was wrong," he said rather weakly and shrugged, then pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose, attempting to tame the whirlwind of his thoughts.

"What is wrong with you?" The ever-rising pitch of his voice betrayed Tatsumi's anger as it began to take the better of him. "One, you _lied. _ Two; whatever happened, you should have healed."

_No way out. _ "Tatsumi..." Watari rose to his feet, swaying as he stood. His head was spinning. Tatsumi caught him and pulled him up but was pushed away; anger and fear melted into one.

Trembling still, he looked at the Shadow Master from narrowed eyes. He met a shock-stricken gaze and Tatsumi's arms dropped to his sides.

"What have you done this time?" he schooled his voice back to the neutral tone, yet by the look on his face Watari knew it had gone too far. "What is it?" Tatsumi pried on, pointing at the bruises on the blonde's bare arms.

"An experiment gone bad," came the sour reply.

"This isn't time for your jokes!" Tatsumi dropped the pretense of calmness. "As your superior--"

"We're not in the office," Watari cut in brusquely. "Don't worry, I'll be in my lab, _working,_ before you finish that tirade you were about to start."

With that he started towards the door, pushing past Tatsumi but with a quick step and swirl the Shadow Master stood in his way.

"You're not going anywhere."

The shadowed corners seemed to stir with a life of their own. Tatsumi's tone was that which would see no quarrel; the one that promised the consequences of disobedience would be immediate and harsh.

But that was at work. This was not.

"Watch me."

Before he knew, the shadows caught him, restraining him, just tight enough to prevent movement. Watari shot a look of cold anger into Tatsumi's narrowed eyes. "Let go."

The Shadow Master did not so much as twitch under that demanding stare. "Not until you tell me the truth."

Watari kept his calm. "I already have."

"Yutaka..." Tatsumi started with an unwavering resolve to squeeze the answer out of the scientist, one way or another, but he was interrupted again.

"Look, Tatsumi." Watari quenched the urge to strain against the bonds. "This is _none of your business._ The best you can do is grab your toys and go away. You're already late for work."

Something in Tatsumi's eyes whispered, _don't push me away, _ and his anger faltered.

"I don't recognize you," he said in a quiet voice, slowly shaking his head even as his eyes never left the golden pair.

"Could that be because you have me by the throat with your _shadows? _" Watari uttered through his gritted teeth, his burning amber gaze piercing through his captor. "Some _partnership. _ Go ahead, let them loose!"

He felt the shadowy bonds tighten around him as Tatsumi trembled, an inch from getting carried away, and Watari wondered if he'd gone too far. It hurt him just as much as he imagined it must have hurt Tatsumi, but he had no time to play fool again.

"Let go," he hissed. Heat rushed up to his face, a swirl of something dark flickered in his mind and he heard the glass at his feet rattle softly as it shot into the air. Shocked, he gasped.

Tatsumi's gaze tore away from his face and he looked away, as did Watari himself, frowning at the glittering spectacle around them. The shadows released him and dispersed, creeping away slowly as their master turned to look at Watari again.

A blank look claimed his features; pale and silent, Tatsumi turned away and walked out of the room, then out of the apartment, the door shutting behind him with a loud thud.

The shards of broken glass fell, lifeless, to the floor.


	4. Chapter Three

I apologize for taking so long with this, but I hit a major block on writing 'Taka in... certain situations, let's put it that way, and had to wait until it passed. :)

Thank you very much to everyone who revieved - especially to Triskell who took time to review all chapters. Nice surprise. :D Arigatou!

Big thank-you to Shan for handling Tatsumi in this. ♥   
Here's chapter three for you. Enjoy.

The music:   
Yami no Matsuei OST II : Kaeru Basho   
Noir OST II : Salva Nos II

* * *

--- 

**Against the Wind**  
Chapter Three

---

In the wake of Tatsumi's steps across the hall, the thud of the door shutting behind him was nothing but another noise around Watari's mind. He stood there, in the middle of the chaos of his apartment, trying not to follow as the sharp shards of glass around him rattled against the hard flood. He stared ahead, lost in an eerie trance just outside of reality, trying to wrap his mind around the events of the past five minutes, and failing miserably. He reached out his hand, unconsciously, as if in hope that the Shadow Master would somehow return, then let it drop loosely to his side. His heart sank. So, this was it.

A wave of heaviness crashed down on him; a mix of fear and distress and disappointment, and then fear again. He remembered his anger, and Tatsumi's; the powers had barely brushed against each other but what had happened, he couldn't tell.

He reached down, picking one tiny piece of glass. He turned it in his fingers, noticing how the sun reflected in the glittering broken edge, how the light split into countless tiny beams going in all directions. He could bet if it had the ability to feel, it would be as confused at being spread so thin, split so raw, as was he.

Had he done that? He could only remember the shadows, tightening their grip around him – to restrain, not to kill, though he knew Tatsumi could will them to do either as he liked – and the pools of anger and pain Tatsumi's sapphire eyes swam with as their gazes locked. He had never wanted to fight, not with Tatsumi. The deadly adversary that he was, his power seemed like nothing in comparison with what the sheer force of the Shadow Master's pain did to his own heart. It refused to let him fight, and yet it happened.

Watari hurled the tiny shard against the wall. _Fool. _

He closed his eyes, counting deep, measured breaths – two, three – until his heart slowed down and his mind began to clear. Whatever happened, it would be foolish to sink even deeper than he already had. Whatever was to happen, he needed a plan.

Eyes snapping open, he cast a dark look at the bloody wall and followed the trace of red down to the floor. The chaos around unsettled him, forced the suffocating memories back to the front of his mind. He would need a less distracting environment to think.

Slowly he rose, shedding his clothes as he made his way to the bathroom. The memory of the still persisting residue of Enma's chilly touch of death made him feel stained, filthy. Tatsumi's arms around him, then his shadows – frightening and soothing at once – wrapped him in a veil of something Watari had long since locked in a heavy-lidded box at the very back of his mind. Guilt.

He stepped under the shower, careless of how burning hot the water was. His skin felt numb, as though whatever had touched it left it more dead than he already was. Leaning with both hands against the wall, he let the water run down his body, head bowed, staring at his feet. The dizziness and nausea had mostly passed, leaving him with a peculiar feeling of emptiness down in his stomach. Or perhaps it was just his heart that felt that way.

Turning around, Watari rested against the wall, leaning his head back and he let his eyes slide shut. He pretended not to have noticed how the water that escaped down the drain was faintly pink; the remnants of blood he hadn't washed off at night came off slowly as he ran his hands along his skin. Strands of long wet hair clung to his face, to his arms and chest.

_You are mine. You gave yourself to me. Your body, your head, your fate is in my hands. Have you forgotten? _

No, he had not forgotten. Not for a moment there, even when everything seemed to have calmed down. He always knew Enma was somewhere there, lurking in the shadows like the supreme sentinel he was, ever acutely aware of everything that went on within the borders of his realm. He had never forgotten the deal that had not been fulfilled. _Never forget you've **sold** yourself to him; not for a second, Yutaka. _

He gave his head a quick shake as he realized he had been scrubbing himself so violently he had broken the skin. Heeding instinct, his own arms wrapped around him in a protective hug to suppress a shudder. It was useless to cry over spilt milk. The deal had long since been sealed. And yet, he had never held such bitter regret, such a grudge against himself as he did now. It had gone where he had always hoped it wouldn't go.

He had to wonder why now, why Enma had chosen this time to call him on the unfinished business, what had changed that could have warranted action at that time – but his mind was in turmoil. Frustrated at being quite unable to piece two coherent thoughts together, Watari resolved to just let his body draw comfort from the hot water pouring down on him. Once out of the apartment, away from it all, he knew he would be back on track again.

He threw back his head, running his hands through his long hair. Somewhere at the back of his mind, he wondered if he would ever get the invisible layer of acid residue that was Enma off himself at all. He still felt the offending hands trapping his, those cold fingers threading through the strands of his hair, that breath so close to his face.

_You are mine. _

"You wish," he snapped back at the voice in his thoughts.

_Even if it means losing Tatsumi? _

Watari froze, momentarily forgetting the hot water that was still washing over him. _I never had him in the first place, _ he thought bitterly, ignoring the dual sort of connotations with the word 'lose' that sprung in his mind. _No matter how much I wished for it, it never happened. Never happened because I didn't dare. _

He turned off the water and reached for a towel. Drying himself, he fought to keep his mind clear of all dark thoughts, for now. An old trick he had taught himself decades ago – once he noticed his thoughts trailed off dangerously close to the realm of self-pity, he'd just shut everything out altogether until he was calm and collected enough to think straight again. It worked sometimes, other times it didn't; now, though, it had no other choice.

Still drying his hair, he searched the apartment for something suitable enough to wear when he showed up at work. He ran a quick mental inventory of the things he kept in his private room adjacent to the lab, remembering there had to be enough spare clothing to change to his usual outfit as soon as he arrived. He would make sure nothing looked suspicious, that nobody had the slightest reason to ask.

_Same shit, different day. _

He squished the little voice that sounded suspiciously like Enma, reminding him of the illusions he'd been living for the past thirty years. _One does what one can, _ or so went the proverb, and he had no ill intentions towards any of his friends. Still, he had to admit it was easier that way – he had never given them reasons to wonder, nobody ever thought to look past his cheerful façade.

Nobody but Tatsumi.

Watari threw his hands up in the air, stopping himself before he let such thoughts invade his mind again. He gave himself a mental punch for going soft at the very thought of his partner. It did him a world of good, in the right time. Now it was anything but the right time to dwell on those things; personal sentiments aside, Tatsumi had unwittingly slipped between Enma and himself. That was unthinkable in and of itself, and more dangerous for the Shadow Master than the man had could guess.

Deliberately oblivious to the surrounding disarray, Watari had not so much as spared his damaged room a glance as he walked past, grabbing his lab coat on his way out the door. He had, however, caught a glimpse of himself in the broken mirror in the hall, and suppressed a shiver at the memory of what had happened there. He shook his head, letting out as small chuckle as he realized that he would draw looks from his co-workers nonetheless; his hair, still wet, was as tousled as it could get, and he didn't even have a spare brush at home.

'Home' was a figure of speech in regards to that place, anyway.

-

Watari fought to keep tension well-covered all the way through the judicial building; down the long corridors, past the offices and rooms, until he sneaked into his lab and closed the door behind him. He had waved cheerfully at Tsuzuki, returned a lighthearted 'good morning' to Wakaba, beamed an apologetic grin at Konoe for being late, and gave a silent thank-you for avoiding a head-on collision with Hisoka. That would have been uncalled for; he knew the empath would have picked up on his distressed state of mind quicker than Watari had a chance to retreat. His waving off the unspoken questions behind the eyebrows raised at his disheveled looks, with bright smiles and a muttered 'Overslept' no less, was nothing unusual. He knew for a fact that Tatsumi had long since locked himself in his office, and had definitely not said a word about the events of the previous night.

His welcome was a hooting tirade as 003 flew down from her perch at the sight of her human. Stroking her feathers when she finally calmed down enough to sit on his shoulder, Watari could at last breathe a sigh of relief.

With another sigh, Watari slumped down in his desk chair. Pushing his glasses out of the way, he rubbed his eyes and brushed both hands across his face. It had never worn him out so much, just being that usual bright self of his around others. It had been like second skin to him, as natural as breathing, and yet now he could almost feel the gloomy curtain of his thoughts coming up to the surface, hindering his attempts at normalcy.

He looked around, taking in the familiar environment of his spacious lab. He liked that place; it worked well to define him, a place of his own that reflected him in more ways than any visitor could guess. There was often what appeared to be chaos to an unadjusted eye, but Watari always knew why things were where they were - all over the place, in a peculiar sort of order only he could grasp. He liked it that way. Something that felt truly his own.

A pile of papers, neatly put in a stack atop his desk drew his attention, and Watari frowned. As he looked through the files, his surprise grew; he remembered those were the reports he had been working on the previous night... but he knew for a fact that had never finished. He had fallen asleep, had woken abruptly from a nightmare, scattering the items all around, spilling his coffee...

Following an impulse, he spun in his chair and checked the other desk with the computer he'd been working on that night. The keyboard looked intact, by all signs the very same one as before.

"Hmmm... Can't be," he muttered to himself, getting to his feet. A small frown drew those elegant light eyebrows together, more a sign of curiosity than anything else as he walked over to the other desk. He spared the keyboard a suspicious look, then took it in his hands for a closer study.

Definitely not new, the hardware bore unerring signs of usage, of the likes he'd owned for years.

Perched on his shoulder, 003 chirped nervously, nibbling at a stray strand of her human's still damp hair. Shifting his gaze from the keyboard to his little fluffy ball of a friend and back, Watari knew he presented a perfect picture of perfectly justified confusion.

"Okay..." putting the keyboard back in its place, Watari held up both hands as if against the momentary doubt in his sanity that brushed across his thoughts, then took in the interior of his lab once more. It looked all but normal. And yet... "Something's not quite right around here," he said, half to himself, half to the owl.

Walking briskly along the terminals, Watari switched them on one after another, one hand idly petting the bird on his shoulder. A network of machines came alive, filling the lab with a quiet buzzing noise.

"Mmm, I'm glad to be back, too," he murmured, running a hand across the top of one of the monitors, removing the nonexistent dust. Strangely enough, it felt as though he had been gone much longer. It couldn't have been more than twelve hours, but Watari could have sworn it had been days.

Plopping down in his chair again, he watched the screens of data flash down and past as the systems loaded up. The thought that something seemed strange, different, settled in his stomach in the form of a small knot. It grew and twisted with that sense of being unable to put his finger on the timeline; a feeling he remembered well. It had happened before.

His shoulders shook in an involuntary shudder.

-

_ "Look at that. He's back." _

_"Impossible." _

_Whispery voices filled his mind. Heavy shoes clicked against the hard floor, no doubt approaching, though the sounds were muffled, as if coming from behind a thick veil of glass. _

_"He is. Pay up." _

_Harsh, slightly choked laughter. Where have I heard this before? _

_"No surprise there." Another voice, older, equally familiar. "Mother said he's out there somewhere." _

_A snort. "Took him long enough." _

_Mother. Mother... the Project. The Five Generals. They were supposed to-- _

_"Take that thing out." _

_A pull, and then another. A faint sensation on the edge of perception – at first merely tingling, then burning that rose and grew as it reached his consciousness and settled in. A wave of sickly heat wrapped him 'round and 'round; involuntary contractions stirred his muscles into a trembling rhythm. _

_"All of it? Are you sure? He's going to--" _

_"Do it." _

_More pulling, and a sequence of vicious snapping sounds crushed his still dull senses. From one second to another his mind couldn't help but acknowledge the presence of pain, cold shivers running across the burning flesh, the rapid shifts of perception and ever-increasing impulses assaulting him from all directions. _

_"You're not going to make it easy on him, are you?" _

_Another snort. "He can take it." _

_Metal instruments clicked somewhere to his left. A cacophony of beeping sounds tore into his mind. He tried to swallow to tame the nausea but found that he couldn't; responding instinctively, his body shuddered in violent convulsions. Someone caught him; cold, brutal hands. He fell forward, boneless, gasping for breath. He tried to open his eyes, but his body followed rules of its own, disobeying him completely. _

_"Put him down somewhere. I'm going to need this terminal." _

_The same hands pulled him up. "Hook him up to the morphine IV?" _

_"No. I want to monitor his progress." _

_The arms holding him stiffened. "That's--" _

_"Do it." The answering voice was a cool command. _

_His body arched on its own as he felt hard, cold surface beneath him. He couldn't keep from shaking, the ever-growing searing pain clouded his mind. Soon the sounds around him muffled once more as he gave in, wishing only to succumb to darkness, but something kept him on the verge of consciousness. The walls of the black void that promised relief wouldn't give. _

_"Once he's out of the haze, he's going to kill you for this." _

_A low chuckle reached him from afar. "Highly doubt it. He won't remember much." _

-

Watari exhaled a low, slow breath. Dangerous misassumption, that. He did remember. All of it. Minutes, hours, days rolled past, and he had made sure none of what had happened would ever be forgotten. Engraved in his memory, those events spurred him onward long afterwards through his painful recovery. Well hidden, his anger could wait for its time.

And it had. He was patient. All the way until he'd had enough.

-

_ "Looking good. You should be up and about sooner than I thought." _

_Watari kept his eyes closed as he inclined his head in a silent agreement. Calm and steady, his only movement was slow, measured intake of air. _

_"You are expected back at work by the end of next week." _

_"No." _

_Fabric whispered around him. "Do you reckon you need more time?" _

_He shook his head. His voice was soft, face expressionless. "No." _

_The man at his side took another step, leaning over him, closer still. "What is the meaning of this?" _

_He wondered briefly what infuriated the man more; his monosyllabic answers, or the illusion of perfect calm he was served with. Still not looking up, he offered a smooth explanation. "I'm not coming back." _

_"I beg your pardon?" _

_Golden eyes snapped open, meeting a pair of gray ones, clearly shock-stricken. Watari regarded the middle-aged looking man with a long, cold stare. _

_"I think I haven't made myself clear enough, so allow me to reiterate. You suck. I quit." _

_Large hands grabbed him by his robe, lifting him slightly from the bed, but Watari's eyes never left the other's face. Challenge burned with amber fire; a clear-cut message that his was the decision to be reckoned with. He studied that rising fury in the older man, felt his hands tremble as he held him, saw the reflection of failure flash in his gray eyes and savored that moment, the one he'd been awaiting for months. _

_"Let him go." _

_Released at once, Watari fell back on the bed. The man took a sharp turn and bent himself in half in an excessively respectful bow. _

_"Enma DaiOh-sama," he said, voice betraying emotion. "I beg forgiveness. This--" _

_"Silence." Enma's silky voice held a note of contempt. He walked past the man, shoving him aside, and stood by the edge of Watari's bed. _

_"It is not always that the golden cage is best for the golden bird, or so the tale says. It could bring misfortune and hindrance to the prince's plans." _

_A slender hand came up, wide sleeve of the god's black robe whispered behind his ear as Enma carded his long, cold fingers through Watari's hair. He held his breath. _

_"Surely you have no wish to add a chapter of woe to the tale of our own? KinU." _

_Regarded with a smile that never reached Enma's jet-black eyes, Watari suppressed a shiver. _

_"Like in the tales of old, all things must draw to an end, somewhere down the road. I wish for a happy end, as do you, I'm sure. For now, let the cage be that of your choice." _

-

They were far from done, and even back then, thirty years before, Watari knew that more than well. He had to give it to Enma; the god had made himself clear on his future plans regarding him. Even so, he had managed to avoid informing him how he was going to get there. Still, once Enma's desires had surfaced, Watari knew he would oppose it or die trying.

Granted, he was already dead – but not as dead as he could be, and _that_ he knew well, too.

But now his concern revolved around matters of far more importance in the light of the events of the past twelve hours. Watari couldn't help but scorn himself for adding his own share to getting Tatsumi involved, but the logical part of his mind knew it didn't matter. One way or another, the Shadow Master would be tricked into playing his part in the game, if that was the path Enma chose for them to go. If not last night in Watari's apartment, then sooner rather than later Tatsumi would "accidentally" run into something suspicious anyway.

He laughed bitterly at the word _accidentally_ that skimmed across his thoughts. He believed in no such thing as 'coincidence' anymore. One who put their faith in chance _anything_ around here was promptly given a harsh reality check after having any sort of dealings with Enma DaiOh. Within this realm, nothing that happened had no reason. The wheels of this giant machinery they were all caught in spun to the rhythm of its ruler's breath.

The uneasy feeling had returned doubled. Watari rubbed his temples with his fingertips and sighed. He knew what bothered him; he had been going through various scenarios of what could happen now continuously since morning, barely sparing the activity a piece of his mind – not that it wasn't enough to unsettle him again – and nothing he came up with made enough sense. Out of many things Enma could do, not one seemed more probable than the next, except that some had a tad worse outcome than the others. Optimistic by nature, Watari subconsciously opposed the idea of thinking that way, but he knew that the situation could take them – Tatsumi and him – virtually anywhere.

The collective uncertainties, the acute awareness of being a step behind for a change, did tricks of their own.

He knew it all. How stress could cloud his judgment. How trying to guess the other's move could blind him to something already at work. How he had been handed his tickets for a grand guilt trip that night, and it would take but one more step to lose himself completely.

_Fine points, _ his mind mocked him, _you've got it all down. Somehow it's not helping. Theory won't get you far, Yutaka. _

Deep down he knew it was only true. Enma's rules fell somewhat short of fair, but Watari had signed up for the game on his own. He had only been handed back what he had paid for thirty years before. Guilt trip included. Not the calculated risk, that; he had refused to look that far, back then.

"It's a little late for regret, you know?" he said thoughtfully to 003 as the little owl flew down to sit on his open palm and regarded him with huge, owlish eyes. "I should have known better. I didn't. I gambled big and it didn't fly. Moving on."

The memory of Tatsumi's clouded eyes hit him hard, and Watari winced at the image, still so fresh in his mind. He caught his lower lip between his teeth, stroking his little friend's breast feathers to calm her, and himself.

"I hurt him, 003," he said, looking deep into the owl's eyes. The bird lowered its head and nibbled affectionately at his hand. "I didn't mean to."

003 looked up, making a little noise. Watari's lips twitched in a smile. "Okay, you know better. I did. But that's the best I can think of right now. He has to stay out of this. He's better off pissed at me than worried and involved."

The tiny owl took flight, all feathers and what had to be angry chiding and Watari shooed her gently away when a small wing slapped him one time too many.

"I beg to differ. I can't just walk up to him and shove it all into his hands. Tatsumi worries for a living, girl. Not that I think he cares so much for me to jump into the pit to save me..." he broke off. His eyes unfocused and a small sad smile smoothed his features. "But even if he did, that's a pit that would swallow us both. And we can't have that," he added after a deep breath, his voice now whisper-soft.

Landing on top of his head, 003 pulled at the strands of her human's hair. The angry harangue slipped into a high-pitched, worried one. Watari reached out his hand and caught the little culprit, disentangling her from his locks and set her back on his hand.

"I'm not going anywhere, if I can help it," he told her seriously. He caught himself wondering if that statement, spoken aloud, served more to reassure her or himself in his resolve. It could have been both. "I don't want to make promises I might be unable to keep, but I'll see what I can do."

_It just makes me wonder how long I can run against the wind before it blows me too far out of my league, _ he mused.

Sorting through his options was a gloomy task and one he had not been looking forward to at all. Any attempts at predicting Enma's moves had only rendered him all the more frustrated as the minutes rolled past. He felt woefully out of his league; Enma's influence, his power over Meifu and its inhabitants made him an opponent Watari found impossible to take on. All he could do was resist, for as long as he could – but was it worth it? The god had already shown him a glimpse of how far he was ready to go to accomplish his plans. Eventually he fell into a state of resignation on that ground, deciding that waiting was as good as any action, if not better. In the end, time would show what was there in stock for him, and Watari could only cling to the hope that somehow, he would find a way.

The painfully slow day didn't do much to help him keep his mind off his worries at all. As if everyone had silently agreed to have business anywhere but with him. Several hours and just as many cups of coffee later, he was tired just of sitting idle. He had been working, quite half-heartedly, on debugging the new system he had spent the past few months developing, but his thoughts wandered and he had every right to suspect he had made no progress at all.

The sky had grown dark outside by the time he'd had enough and rose from his chair to stretch his stiffened muscles. Most of the employees must have already gone to their respective homes; it no longer made sense for him to stay locked in there, either.

His routine check of the computers revealed nothing alarming, yet the sight of _that_ keyboard confused and unnerved him anew. For the whole day, he had been trying to recall the previous evening minute by minute, but it couldn't have been just a dream, he knew. He was sure it had happened just as he was certain Tatsumi was still in his office, working his usual late hours like any other day.

Casting one last look around the lab, Watari frowned and flipped the light switch on his way out. "I think I'm losing my mind," he muttered to himself as he locked the door.

-

Empty and quiet, the bullpen looked inviting enough as Watari slid the door open and peeked inside. Despite the sheer amount of it he had poured into himself throughout the day, coffee still looked and smelled just as inviting. He eased himself into the room, stretched his arms and stifled a yawn. It felt ridiculous to be so tired after what was hardly a day of genuine work, but he knew the previous night had worn him out and whatever had slowed down his healing process, had to be affecting him still.

He smiled to himself, pouring a cup of steaming coffee into the cup. The bittersweet scent tickled his nostrils, the warmth entering his body even before his mouth came in contact with the hot liquid itself. If only things could be that simple again, he would have enjoyed it as he always had.

He sat down, folding his arms on the tabletop and rested his head on his forearms. The cup of coffee was blurred in front of him and Watari blinked, all of a sudden hardly able to resist the need to rest, if only just a while. Fingers curled around the cup, he let his head roll to the side. Once more making a promise to himself that it would not take long, Watari closed his eyes. He began to relax, absorbing the warmth and as it slowly made its way through his skin, up his arms and settled comfortably deep in his chest, his mind drifted away.

-

It had been darkness, soft yet sound, that shielded his mind – the first dreamless sleep since Kamakura. He embraced it as it embraced him; slowly falling into a blind dance. At the edge of consciousness he protested the feel of a gentle hand laid between his shoulder blades; that touch, though soft, tore him out and away from his safe place. Shivering, Watari stopped himself before he jumped.

_Tatsumi. _

Lifting his head from where it had been resting on his crossed arms, he blinked away the remnants of sleep from his eyes and forced his mind back into focus. He winced as the stiff muscles of his neck protested movement, but by the time he met Tatsumi's eyes, a small smile already danced in the corners of his lips.

The hand that woke him slipped away and Tatsumi's ever-calm, collected countenance faltered, his sapphire gaze dropped and hesitated before he looked back up again.

"Hey." Watari's voice bore trails of sleep, and he cleared his throat.

Tatsumi inclined his head, emotions that played on his face again under control. "Good evening."

Aware that his cheeks must have appeared slightly flushed from the sudden surprise, Watari carefully wiped away all signs of alarm from his face, putting on a neutral expression. Then his heart rate went through the roof the instant he recognized that look on Tatsumi's face – the weary kind of calm that spoke of deep worry eating away at him, small creases on his forehead that gave him the appearance of a man far older than he was – by human standards, anyway. Silent, Tatsumi stepped away and retreated to the corner of the room, pouring himself a cup of coffee with slow, almost painfully deliberate precision.

Once he got past putting his foot down on the idea to get up and run away, Watari choked back on at least three more similarly ridiculous urges and resolved to let Tatsumi make the next move. He half expected to be cornered about the events of the past night and morning and he would have gladly escaped it, but he knew it could not be helped. He could not possibly keep avoiding Tatsumi forever; working together did the trick when it came to rendering such solutions completely useless.

A steaming cup in hand, Tatsumi crossed the room and perched himself down on chair at the far end of the table. His fingers curled around the cup, he kept his gaze low for a longer while before his hand wandered up to shift the glasses on his face.

Watari had to smile inwardly at his inevitable recognition of that trick. One of Tatsumi's ways to buy himself time to give his face that inscrutable look. He had not anticipated word-wasting chatter, but the Secretary's words caught him unawares.

"Do you hate me for what I've done? For how I am?"

_Oh, great. Do you ever blame the culprit, Tatsumi, or is it always yourself? _ Watari squished the urge to get up and beat some logic into his partner's head. He let out a soundless sigh instead, giving his own head a light shake.

"If you mean that little shadow play in the morning – should I? I asked for it."

Visibly uncomfortable with Watari's straightforward approach to the matter, Tatsumi took a slightly deeper breath before he looked up. Watari couldn't help the wave of burning heat that rushed through him under the pressure of that stare. A pair of sapphire eyes indulged in a careful study and he felt as though they read him like an open book.

He could not recall being an open book to anyone. Ever.

At any other time, he would have met those enquiring eyes with ease. He would have flashed one of his signature smiles and changed the subject, easily slipping back onto a neutral ground. But not this time. That endless sky blue kept him frozen in place.

It seemed like forever before Tatsumi disengaged himself from that peculiar staring contest and looked down, twirling his cup between his fingers.

"Then why do you push me away?" he asked at last.

The question cut though him like the coldest ice. His own gaze dropped as Watari slowly swallowed down the lump that had begun to take form in his throat. _What do you want me to say? _ Questions of his own rushed through his head. _The truth? _

"I'm sorry," he said, a little more hesitantly than he had intended. "I don't have a smart answer to that question."

Out of the corner of his eye, Watari saw Tatsumi's lips draw together in a thin line.

"I don't need a smart answer, Watari," he told him calmly, in that explicatory tone of infinite patience. "A truthful one will do."

_I push you away because if I let you come any closer, I will drag you down along with me, if it comes to that. _ "You of all people should know," Watari managed to keep the tone of his voice even and matter-of-fact, "that asking for a truthful answer isn't always the best of ideas. It could get you more than you bargained for." _And you mean too much. Watari's inner voice groaned. If I burn, I burn. But you won't, if I can help it, Seiichirou. _

"That's possible. But I can't stand and watch you drown. Something is poisoning you from the inside out. What is it?"

Watari looked up, driven to meet Tatsumi face to face by that determination seeping from the Secretary's every word. It was not the Tatsumi he saw every day, but he had met him before – the previous night, in his own home.

"Why are you so hell-bent on helping me, Tatsumi?"

The look on the Shadow Master's face softened. "Because I'm not heartless. Because I've... learned. Because we're human, Shinigami or not, and you don't have to go through this alone."

_Are we? _ Watari gave his inner voice a mental slap. Unfortunate choice of reason, that. "If you want to help, there's only one thing I can ask of you."

"Let me guess," Tatsumi cut in before Watari had a chance to open his mouth again. "Stay away and let you handle this alone, am I right?" Tatsumi's dark elegant eyebrows drew together in a small frown. "Why do you have to be so stubborn?"

Watari let out a quiet chuckle. It sounded fake even in his own ears. "I was born that way," he threw back the ball of a light retort, but his heart was growing heavier by the second. _Because I'm arrogant enough to think I'll work it out. _

Tatsumi gave a light shrug. "So was I, but that doesn't take me above needing help from my friends."

_You've learned, _ Watari mused wistfully. He let his hands slide down from the tabletop and rested them both on his lap, then clenched them into fists. _Too soft. _

"Is that so? I would imagine the facts alone argue otherwise," he said coolly, yet careful not to slip too sharp edges in between the words. _I'm sorry. _ "There's a difference between needing something and being able to allow yourself to ask for it, Tatsumi."

_Get a grip, _ he chastised himself at once. _You talk too much. _

"Damn it, Watari!"

_Too late. _ The taste of Tatsumi's anger, the frustrated kind, was bitter and it hurt.

But the Shadow Master would not let it loose again this time. "What do I have to do to make you understand..." he broke off with a sigh, self control back in reign. "I want to look behind that mask of yours, no matter what it shows. You've already let me peek. I didn't run away."

_Only true. _ Watari pushed his glasses out of the way and brushed his hand across his face, briefly pressing his fingers to his forehead. His face was burning. He knew he had lost his lead.

"No, you didn't," he whispered, overwhelmed all of a sudden by the sheer load of tension and accumulated emotions of far too contradicting kinds; towards himself, and that man, and Enma and every little part of the world around him. He knew it had to be crystal clear, reflecting in his face and even in the way he still kept his other hand curled into a fist, trying to physically stop the emotionally unstoppable.

He rose to his feet, pushing the chair away. The loud screech it made against the floor drew a wince out of him.

Silently hoping his shaking legs wouldn't buckle under him, he crossed the room, never looking back, nor stopping until he reached the window. Leaning against the windowsill, he took a deep breath to ease the heat of emotion boiling inside him and regain his composure. He looked up. Outside, the darkness had long since fallen, claiming possession of the ever-blooming sakura trees, enveloping them in a thick blanket of deep, impenetrable shadow.

"You should have." Watari hadn't realized he had spoken loud until he heard a barely audible noise behind him, then feather-soft steps across the floor. He found some amusing irony in a sudden bizarre observation that there were three loud thumps of his heart for every silent click of Tatsumi's shoes.

The Shadow Master's blurry reflection took shape in the window and Watari could only stare at him as he approached, and he clenched his fists again to keep himself grounded. He felt the warmth of that man just inches behind his back. So close and yet so far; mere inches that could very well have been miles, for the circumstances that kept them apart.

Tatsumi's whispered words enveloped him in an eerie veil that reduced him to a minutely trembling wreck. "I didn't run, and I never will, Yutaka. Remember that."

His heart skipped a beat and Watari gritted his teeth, eyes squeezing shut against an overwhelming wave of disappointment and pain that clashed into him. He caught himself hoping that Tatsumi would take that final step, break him, crush that wall between them. It would have taken but a reaching of his hand, and he would crumble down, not caring for what would happen next. Somewhere in his mind a far-off cry screamed of the folly of such hope and how there would be no return, but it was lost on him.

Tatsumi turned on his heel and walked a few tentative steps away.

Watari's dams broke. He not so much turned as whirled around, stopping himself from reaching out to catch the Shadow Master only by the last lone thread of sanity that held him together. He heard himself speak; a broken waterfall of words in a dissonance of thoughts and heartbeat and blood rushing through his ears.

"Why can't you just trust me for once?"

Tatsumi came to an abrupt halt, caught in half-step by that question which Watari knew had to be his doom. The pain that crossed Tatsumi's face sobered him up in an instant and his stomach twisted itself into a knot.

"And you're asking _me? _" No malice. No accusation. Just sorrow.

Free from the hazy world where his burning emotions reigned supreme, Watari's gaze dropped. The real world, cold yet riddled with the echo of Tatsumi's words that should have broken him but somehow didn't, hit him hard. He wanted just to cross his arms to keep from trembling, but he found that he was treating himself to a defensive hug instead. There was not much left to do after _that_ lapse of control.

"It's okay," he said quietly, "I'm probably asking for more than you can give."

"I'm not sure what's okay and what isn't." Tatsumi's voice gained a cool, slightly distant undertone. "But apparently I'm not in the position to judge that. Trust works both ways."

_Trust. _

Before the sea of piercing heat settled in, Watari's last thought was a plea for forgiveness and an end to those lies he found himself unable to end.

He had thought it all over back and forth, certain he'd left nothing out. There would be colleagues. Friends, maybe; he had always liked people. There would be co-workers and others and it was alright to be who he was. He could have handled being just that, the cheerful soul, everyone's friend, the one never taken all too seriously. He had calculated the risks with meticulous precision, and he had predicted most of the outcomes before he took the plunge.

But he had not predicted love.

"Please," Watari whispered, head bowed under the weight of it all, crushed by the discovery of the right name for the cause of this feeling. Hidden behind a fall of golden hair, he had lost the plan, the words, the resolve. "Please. I know it makes no sense to you. But whatever you do, do _not_ get involved. Let it rest."

Lifting his head but a little, he forced himself to look at his stunned, speechless partner face to face. "_Please, _ Tatsumi."

In the silence around them, Watari could only hear the pounding of his own heart, could only see the endless blue that filled him down to the core, and all thoughts, all hopes, escaped him.

Tatsumi slowly lifted his hand, battling hesitant thoughts. His fingers curled into a loose fist but then the Shinigami let it drop back to his side, heeding an order of a change of heart.

"Do you wish for me to stay away from you altogether?"

The question, whisper-soft, was yet like a rumble of a thunder in Watari's ears, one that lodged itself in his heart and tore it to shreds.

"Tatsumi..." Watari breathed, hardly able to see anything anymore through a blurry mist that claimed his eyes. "I..."

_Fool. He's giving you your chance. Do what you must. _

Gathering the leftovers of strength and energy Watari tore his gaze away from Tatsumi's blurred face and slowly turned around, away from him, away from it all.

"Yes."

The brittle silence that followed seemed as though it would explode any second; to Watari, anyway. He half expected, half hoped that... No, he had left it all behind.

"I see," Tatsumi spoke in a clear, leveled tone; his signature professional voice. A soft whisper of paper against cloth reached him, but Watari did not turn around. He no longer trusted himself to do even that.

"Someone left this for you earlier today." Tatsumi placed a small piece of paper on the table and took a step back, adjusting his glasses.

Watari couldn't stare into the window anymore. Even as a mere reflection, Tatsumi was too much.

"Goodnight, Watari-san."

-

The next thing he knew, Watari was sitting on the floor, his back against the door, one hand clutching at his hair, the other wiping his eyes. That in itself seemed quite futile; he had lost control when that door had shut, and with it went his strength to keep the fine human traits at bay. There had been no holding back the tears anymore.

He couldn't remember how he got there; not that it mattered, unless Tatsumi had stayed long enough to bear witness. The first coherent thought in Watari's mind was that Tatsumi would have still been there, had he lost it in front of the man. Relieved only so little, he let out a long, shuddering sigh.

He looked around, slowly calming down. The light above him flickered. Everything looked as it always had; not much had changed in the past thirty years. The building had emptied a few hours before; hardly anyone was willingly prolific enough to work after hours, unless in dire need.

Watari found his glasses on his lap, somewhere between the folds of his lab coat and wiped them clean before replacing them on his face. Shifting his weight, he shook his head to rid himself of numbness.

Something white to his right caught his attention. He picked up the small folded piece of paper and frowned. The one Tatsumi had brought and given him before he left. Watari turned it in his trembling fingers. Yet before he unfolded the paper to look at the message it carried, he remembered. He had already read it. His palms went damp, breath catching in his throat.

_Palace of Candles, after hours. Come alone. You have work to do. _

---

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**Author's Notes:**  
If you're confused about certain little details in this chapter, don't worry - it only means you're an attentive reader ;) Bear with me. All of this is there for a good reason... :) 


	5. Chapter Four

I took my time, didn't I? Well, I would never give up on this story, though. I hope you're still with me. :) Please enjoy, and don't hesitate to drop a review and let me know if it's worth those two months of waiting.  
Warnings: Language, towards the end. Psychological mind games.  
The music: Lisa Gerrard – _Amergin's Invocation_ (email if you want it)

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**Against the Wind**  
Chapter Four

-

In the still silence of the night, the Castle of Candles loomed ominously against the starlit sky. Watari remember having made an observation, a while back, that the enormous edifice had a similar unnerving feel to it whether one beheld it at night or in bright daylight. A curious contradiction, that; the Castle that housed millions of candles, the feeble representatives of the existence of every person currently alive in Japan, resembled a grim shrine of death rather than a place that had anything to do with life.

The creepy darkness shrouding the building unsettled many; still, as it was, Watari found himself unfazed. Silence, though, was another matter. In the dead of night, the still air somehow smelt of death and decay, even more so as he entered the first of many pathways leading towards the entrance.

Across the neatly kept lawn, along the narrow paths that wove intricate patterns around the Count's domain, Watari made his way quickly, with no trace of hesitation in his long, sure strides. His slightly narrowed eyes focused on the tall, dark gate straight ahead of him. He stared it up and down, as though it could tell him something about what lay in wait inside.

The offending slip of paper, still gripped tightly in his closed fist, seemed to mock him with its pristine white as Watari unfolded his fingers and spared it a critical look, never slowing down as he approached the Castle. By appearance alone, it could have been printed anywhere; in his own lab, even, for all he knew. Although unsigned, the tone of the message told him clearly enough who the sender had to be.

Using Tatsumi to deliver the slip was a move so obvious Watari found himself almost compelled to laugh. Whatever hope he'd had for the chance to keep his partner uninvolved ,as long as he could, had vanished in the wake of the Secretary's parting words. Instantly Watari knew he had given Enma's fairness far more credit than the god deserved. He was nothing if not perfectly capable of playing dirty tricks, to ensure he had the upper hand. His patience had run out; when Enma chose to strike, he aimed straight for the mark. Watari had no doubt the god would not miss his carefully chosen aim. The wheels had begun to spin; he knew he was in for a ride all the way down.

Long, silky shadows crept in slowly as he moved, preceding every step as if showing him the way, as though he didn't know it well enough, himself. The Castle itself cast a large chunk of shadow that wrapped the ground at its wide front in an all but impenetrable veil. Feeble invitation, that.

Watari fished in his pocket for a watch. Half past eleven. Not quite a suitable time to pay someone a visit, he thought as he stood in front of the impressive gate. He doubted he would meet the master of the house, though – and even though he was loath to guess what sort of 'work' he was expected to do, he didn't think the Hakushaku had anything to to do with it. Had the Count encountered a problem that required the assistance of a Shinigami, he would have undoubtedly requested that the one sent in to his aid was no other than Tsuzuki himself.

Drawing a long, deep breath to calm his somewhat shaky nerves, Watari reached out his hand for the door - when suddenly it cracked open before he even had a chance to knock. Befuddled for but an instant, he sighed as he looked down. In doorway, Watson – the Count's undead manservant - bent himself excessively low in greeting of the guest. He held a candelabra with five dripping candles that sat, haphazardly, in their holders.

"Good evening," the servant's screeching voice greeted him as Watson straightened himself again, almost dropping the candelabra in the process. "Watari-san, you are being expected."

Watari frowned as he returned the bow, sweeping his hair back before it caught fire from one of Watson's dangerously wobbling candles. "Thank you," he said, walking past the threshold as soon as the small gardener moved away to make room for him for pass.

The door closed behind him with a dull, muffled thud; as if something restrained it by a barely noticeable touch of some invisible obstacle. Watari shrugged lightly as he realized he hadn't noticed Watson moving an inch towards it. Something like a heavy bolt slid with a moan, that of old, rusty iron, and clicked as it lodged itself in the lock.

_Figures, _Watari thought to himself, all the while keeping a silent watch on the manservant as Watson sneaked past him, creepy cracking of old bones accompanying each tentative step. _Intimidation? _He smirked. Watson motioned one heavily shaking hand for him to follow. _Show off is more like it. Old tricks, try again. _

The marble stairs seemed to climb endlessly up as Watari followed the zombie servant at an unbearably slow pace. To his surprise, he found the Castle unnervingly quiet; most lights were out, save an occasional candle in large, ornate holders attached to the walls on both sides of the wide, curving stairway. Here, like outside, the shadows danced to some imperceptible tune; the flames flickered in what seemed almost like a pattern against the laws of physics – the air was perfectly still.

Then again, Watari knew better than to expect anything in the Castle to work the normal way. He had seen enough of its strange wonders to know that he should never assume he had seen it all.

Watson led the way in complete silence, sans the click-clack of his bones which Watari soon ignored as irrelevant background noise. Instead, he focused on getting himself prepared for the meeting that was about to take place - not that he hoped he could predict what would actually occur, but at least he could get his bearings enough to try and maintain at least some manner of control. Come hell or high water, he would not suffer having self control wretched out of his hands easily again.

At the end of a long, dimly lit corridor, a pair of heavy doors invited him with a ribbon of warm light seeping through a small crack between the edge and the thick, wooden frame. Watson came to a halt a few steps away, cracking a creepy grin at Watari as he motioned towards the door.

"I have been ordered to escort you here. Please excuse me now, I shall take my leave."

Watari nodded a thank-you, casting a brief side glance at the slightly ajar door. At once his throat felt tight and strangely dry.

"Please, enjoy yourself," Watson said courtly, bowing again before he turned on his heel and limped back to wherever he spent his eternity when he wasn't called to serve.

The scientist gave him a wry smile. "I shall."

Left to his own devices, Watari looked around in curious anticipation. Here, the silence was no longer so deafening even as Watson had turned a corner and his small figure dissolved in the darkness down the hall. A soft crackling sound of burning wood came from inside the room, warmth seeping out alongside the pleasant, gentle light.

Suppressing a shiver, Watari wasted no time wondering whether it was a remotely good idea to have come here at all. He knew all too well; he had no other choice. If not in terms of disobedience, as the invitation had come through anything but the official channel, Enma would interpret his refusal as a challenge. That, Watari's experience told him, would have been a course of action that 'sheer stupidity' failed to describe.

With one more deep breath, he straightened his lab coat, somewhat wrinkled, and brushed the loose strands of his long hair away from his face. Slowly but decidedly he pulled the door open and entered.

In the room that looked more like a hall, for the size of it, a long table with several tall, decorative chairs around it occupied the center spot. To his left, a large fireplace emitted warmth Watari felt even as he stood at a distance of several feet. But his attention was fully with the dark, richly clad figure at the other end of the table, right in front of him.

"You're late."

The voice that greeted him held a faint undertone of contempt, although he suspected that note had taken permanent residence there and amusement could have been more like it.

"The reception was painfully slow." Watari measured Enma's tall figure posed in the chair in an almost casual way. Dressed in a black robe, no doubt pure silk from the looks of it, he seemed at ease – his long, black hair wove loosely around his broad shoulders, cascading down like a living creature with a mind of its own.

"Well," the god said, setting a small, white porcelain cup in front of him, "Consider yourself excused, this time. You've had a rough day."

Inwardly Watari winced, though he gave no sign of discomfort on the outside. Across the long room, Enma's face was hard to read, but he could bet the god wore a ghost of a smile on those pale lips that betrayed how pleased he was with himself.

"How gracious of you," he said dryly, still not moving from his spot by the door. He wondered briefly how far into the game Enma had planned to let him go before dragging him back down and into submission in one of his creative little ways.

"You approve. I appreciate it," he said smoothly. Then, beckoning Watari forward with a small wave of his hand, he shifted in his chair and leaned against the table on one elbow.

Watari moved from his spot with a bit more reluctance than he'd cared to show, eyes never leaving Enma's face, subconsciously studying his every tiniest move. For the rough treatment of the previous night and earlier that day, the game seemed to have slowed down to an almost leisurely pace. A sudden change, that – a surprisingly unwelcome one, suspicious in and of itself.

The sound of his footsteps was muffled by the lush carpet laid out on the floor as he crossed the room towards the offered chair.

"Please, take a seat," Enma invited him courtly with a nod of his head.

Watari raised an eyebrow. When the pieces of the puzzle at hand failed to form a whole, he patched up the holes with everything he managed read in between the lines. Now that _nothing _added up, he found his unease and suspicion growing by the second.

"What am I doing here?" he asked as he took a seat at his end of the table, opposite the god.

"Come now." Enma leaned further forth and folded his pale, slender hands in front of his face. "You come here on my sincere invitation, and demand answers right at the door? Indeed, I should be the one asking them of you."

"What could I possibly tell you that you don't already know?"

"You flatter me, but there are questions you have managed to avoid answering so far." Enma took another tiny sip from his cup. "Regarding your work, for one. Did you know that some of your former colleagues still wonder whether it was bold or stupid of you to have turned your back on my offer, thus breaking the agreement through which I granted you your extension?"

"I haven't heard you complain about the quality of my work."

"Don't test my patience, KinU." The god's voice sounded stern now, one that permitted no game. "I want to hear this from you. Tonight. Why did you leave? You could have achieved so much."

A shiver ran down Watari's spine, but he kept his calm. "There's a fine line between the acceptable and the unethical. You crossed it. Does that answer your question?"

"I crossed it?" Enma snorted in disdain. "Truly, you couldn't be more mistaken. You, of all people, should bite your tongue before judging the ethics of others."

The black eyes fixed upon him were distant and cold; Watari met them, as he had many times before. "And here I thought," he said, "that you want me back because you trust my judgment."

"I care little for your judgment; today, anyway. I care for your answer."

Watari shrugged. "You asked me whether it was worth it. Is that what you're getting at?"

"Ah, always a step ahead, aren't you." Enma smirked. "The question, however, is not whether it was worth it, but whether you can forgive yourself."

Watari bit his lower lip; a reaction too instinctive to hold back from it before he noticed a glint dancing in those slightly narrowed jet-black eyes; the herald of satisfaction at having hit an obviously sore spot.

Enma measured him with critical eyes, one eyebrow arched. "Then again, I'm sure you must have wondered - would the others forgive you, if they knew? Such a noble act you have there, on your agenda; to protect your friends, to help them, but would they even want that if they knew the true face of the man that hides behind that mask?"

Staring down at his hands, Watari counted his slow, measured breaths to keep his composure. He had been thinking, yes; even though he had long since pushed the thoughts of guilt far back in his mind, at times they couldn't help but surface. Sneaking up on him when he was alone, the odd one out when no one needed him, guilt was a distraction that held him back all too many times. He had half-expected someone to rub it into his face all over again, but once the question came, he found himself strangely at a loss for words.

"Deep down, you already know," Enma drummed his fingers on the table as he spoke. "You have no other choice."

Watari looked up. "Exactly. I've never had a choice, have I?"

Cocking his head as his smirk turned into a grin, Enma said nothing. Silence lay between them for a few long seconds, but the answer rang softly just beneath the veil of satisfaction, unspoken and yet clear enough without the need of words.

As he rose from his chair, leaning heavily against the tabletop, Watari felt his anger rise along with him. "It's been twenty five years since the day I left. If I've never had a choice, why the game?"

"You tell me," Enma said as he, too, rose from his seat. "If you had complied, no game, as you call it, would have been necessary."

"You have curious ways of delivering your lessons." Watari couldn't keep the bitter tone away from his voice; he scorned himself quietly in his thoughts. For all the smart responses crowding in his mind, he knew this time they would not get him far.

"Does that mean you've learned?" Enma asked, crossing his arms on his chest. He walked up to the fireplace, one hand reaching out towards the sparkling flames.

Watari watched the god out of the corner of his eye; the nearly flawless, smooth movements, all but suave, misleadingly gentle and calm. In the light of the fire before him Enma looked eerily beautiful, caught in the dance of light and shadow on his pale face. For the first time since he remembered, Watari found such beauty repulsive beyond thought.

"Have you?" Enma turned his head, expectation etched onto his features even as he seemed suspended in both time and space.

Calmly now, Watari wiped any and all emotion away from his face. "You wish," he uttered; not bitterly, without challenge, just matter-of-fact.

Soft laughter echoed in the room; Enma gave his head a shake, perhaps of disbelief, his long hair shimmering in the warm light. "Truly, now I have to wonder, myself: boldness, or stupidity."

Annoyance settled in, hushing guilt and questions, but its rising surge threatened to take control and Watari found it to be bothersome as well. Of all things, the casual attitude and the cruel words combined into a god – devil, he thought, had to be more like it - boiled the blood in his veins.

"Maybe both. But, think about it. You put me in a situation with no way out of it. Either way it goes, if you win, I lose. Isn't _that_ what you have planned?"

Enma's face seemed frozen as Watari met his eyes and their gazes locked; measuring, assessing, trying to see through one another's makeshift masks and read behind intentions that seemed crystal clear. Watari had learned early and long ago; trusting that illusion would be a mistake he could never fix.

"Since it came to that," he said slowly, half-turning towards the door. He watched Enma follow suit, curious now, the momentary silence a sign of slight surprise. "Don't bother," Watari's voice held a cold note as he inclined his head in a polite bow. "I'll let myself out."

"Is that a 'no'?"

One hand on the door knob, Watari stopped and closed his eyes. He exhaled slowly. He did not turn to face Enma again as he spoke, his voice quiet but firm. "It is."

In the dimly lit hall, the air was still and thick as it had been before. Watari slipped around the edge of the doorframe smoothly, careful not to show that his legs felt weak in the knees and his head was spinning just a bit too much for comfort. The dead silence rendered him uneasy; the thick carpet would have muffled the sound, had Enma decided to follow, but Watari hadn't really expected the god to do that. Not just yet.

Once more, he had gotten away easily; too easily for his dismissal to have been anything but feigned. He had been there, once; at the point of decision – a yes-no answer that, he had hoped, would have set him free. But back then, he had begun to realize it was but a diversion – a stretch of his leash to put his mind at ease. Tonight, he had made the same choice; but this time, his trust in it having any sort of value had grown even less.

As he made his way back down the curving stairs, he couldn't help but hear those loathsome words echoing in his thoughts all over again. _Can you forgive yourself? _Enma's distorted voice mocked him, and Watari cursed his inability to come back with a retort.

Then again, he knew, there wasn't much he could have said to that. He had pushed that guilt away and never dwelt on it lest it swipe him down a self-destructive path. He had learned to understand that the part he had played brought about consequences he just had to bear. And bear them he did, having once prided himself on knowing every weakness that threatened to crush his strength. He had managed to avoid confrontation on that ground for twenty five years.

Now, he thought, each of the past choices had finally surfaced to catch up with him. Determined to keep the upper hand and fulfill his plans, Enma DaiOh had made sure he no longer had an easy way out.

_Any way out, for that matter, _he thought bitterly.

Lit by candles alone, the hall downstairs was a stage on which long shadows danced a silent pantomime between the wood-laden walls. As he looked around, Watari wondered if any of those candles there could have stood for human souls. It seemed foolish; in such an open place, where a passing ghost of another undead could blow it out by chance, the flames were nothing feeble; they kept burning strong and true. It had almost amused him once, when he had seen a room filled with candles in this very place, how brittle they were and how well it corresponded to the human lives. From one second to another, people lived and then they died, and it took but a gust of breath to bring about their end as their candle died.

Some of them died slowly, he knew – over the course of weeks, sometimes months, the light would dim as they sorted out their earthly cares, said goodbye to their families and friends. Other times they lay alone in the dark and wondered what took death so long to relieve their pain. He remembered his own death; a flash of transition and the thought – the last and the first – that it was not fair, too soon, that life had been too good to have been true and _what mistake had he made, anyway_? Almost thirty years had passed, and it puzzled him still. What at first had made him want to stay, why he had refused to let himself die, was curiosity, of that guilty sort, to find out _how _and _why_. But between his new job and the existence that turned out to have been more complicated than he would have thought, that investigation had been pushed significantly down on his priority list.

He had heard a tale, once; from a guardian who moved on soon after Watari had come to work in the Shokan-ka. Even the Shinigami, he had said, had their candles somewhere in the labyrinth of the Count's domain. There were times when Watari wondered if that indeed was true. He'd had a dream once, where he stood in a shrine-like place where the candles were black, and he stared, in brittle silence, at the one that bore his name. Would he die again, he wondered, if he blew it out?

As he turned a corner, Watari started at a distant sound of footsteps pounding on the floor. Stopped dead in his tracks, he listened as a far-off squeak of a door swinging on its ancient hinges echoed through the hall.

A candle flickered to his left; the flame exploded, for an instant, with fire so rich and bright it was almost blinding – strange, Watari thought, it seemed so small before – and then it went out with a hiss, as though someone quenched its wick.

_Chief!_

He spun, with a frown. The familiarity of the voice startled him. It had been twenty five years since the last time he'd heard it, and yet he would not have mistaken it for anything else. A few more steps, and he stood before a large door. He shook his head. It could not be.

_Chief... Watari-san!_

"Impossible," he muttered under his breath, one hand reaching out for the door handle but a wave of uncertainty held him back as it crashed down on him with a memory of the person who called out his name.

_Watari-san!_

"Akane..." he whispered. His heart pounded hard in his chest, blood rushing through his ears. His chest felt tight with tension that held him in an iron grip, even as he forced his feet to move and take the last step towards the door. A part of him screamed against it; subconsciously he knew that he should never, ever open that door, but the urge to see with his own eyes whether it was just his mind that played tricks on him again proved too hard to resist.

_Watari-san... please..._

Hesitantly, he pulled open the heavy door. Inside, the bright light spilled all around; a cold light, that of large, halogen lamps, not unlike the ones in his own lab. Watari blinked twice, unsure how he could be seeing what lay ahead of him.

In the center of that room, a young girl with long, straight dark hair stood, alone, wringing her hands. Almost deafened by the sound of his own heartbeat, Watari took two hesitant steps inside.

The door behind him shut with a loud, hollow thud; the sound echoing across the hall beyond. He turned his head as the breeze of air it blew into motion rushed past him, then the soft sound of weeping urged him to turn back again.

"Akane?" Still unable to believe his eyes, Watari wiped them with the back of his hand.

"Chief," the girl whispered, her hazel eyes fixed firmly upon Watari's face. "How could you?"

Frowning, he took a step back. "What?"

Akane shook her head. "How could you?" she repeated.

_She's long gone, _Watari told himself sternly inside his head. _She's not real. It's not real. _Forcing himself to step forth again, he looked around. The lab looked familiar; the Five Generals Headquarters, it had to be. It had been twenty five years since he had last seen it, but in his memory it was as clear as though it had been just the day before.

"Don't you have anything to say?" Akane's voice took on a sharper edge now that she was moving – slowly, tentatively – across the marble floor to where Watari stood, momentarily at a loss for words.

"I don't understand," he said, eyes narrowed, suddenly feeling short of breath.

"But you do." Her words came quickly now, all but angry, accusation flashing in her eyes, radiating from her posture even as the small traces of tears still shone faintly on her cheeks. "You killed me. How could you"

"What?" Watari snapped, instinctively tensing even though his lungs had already begun to burn from the lack of air. "I didn't." He shook his head, denying. "It was your choice. I didn't ask for--"

"You killed me," she repeated sternly. "You wanted to escape. You wanted it so much. But you couldn't have just stopped there, could you? You had to get even. Revenge, you said. For what they did to you. And you used me."

"You did that because--" Watari broke off, screwing his eyes shut. _She's not here. Not real. This place shows what I can't—-what I don't want to see. _

"You used me because you knew I cared."

A step away from him, the girl stopped and looked up, her eyes locked on his as her hand came up and she pointed a finger at him. She trembled with anger; it threatened to burst through her slender frame.

"Was it worth it?" she asked, unblinking, her voice all but a screech now and her eyes, he realized, were empty like those of a shell whose soul had long since departed to a better place.

Watari stumbled backwards, breathing hard, feeling behind him for the door handle with one hand but he couldn't tear his eyes away from the ghost. Akane's accusing finger was still pointing at him, even as her illusionary form began to dissolve. As she crumbled into dust at his feet, he heard a sob resonating in the lab; a piercing howl filled with agony, saturated with power he hadn't heard before. The windows trembled with the sound vibrating through the room, as did Watari, as he stared down at the sapless dust.

He curled his hands into fists, willing himself to ignore that pile of ash. _It's not real, _his mind went on, but the sight in front of him, so eerily real, argued otherwise. Carefully, he stepped past the ashes and walked across the room; touching the tables – _not real –_ moving a chair that stood in his way – _an illusion –_ brushing one hand across a monitor – _but it's real--_ inhaling the familiar scent – _it can't be real! - _shaking his head in a frightening blend of disbelief and grave curiosity.

"Disgusting."

His head whipped around at the sudden sound; Watari caught the edge of a table behind him to steady himself and frowned. At the far end of the lab, a young man in a torn, singed lab coat stood, his hands resting on his hips. He measured Watari, carefully, from head to toe.

"Takahashi?"

"In the end," the man seethed through his gritted teeth, "you've sold your head and your body to the JuuOhCho."

Watari swept his glasses out of the way, then wiped his eyes. He heard the man's quickened breath but the sound merged with his own heart speeding up again in a cacophony that caused his head to spin.

"It's not real," he whispered, blinking to will the illusion away but Takahashi only took a step closer towards him, that angry look in his eyes all but setting them ablaze.

"Go to Hell," he uttered, waving one hand; his eyes narrowed further and another step took him closer still. "You make me sick."

Watari looked around, desperately, at once realizing that he'd have to get past the man, his colleague once – _such a long time ago – _to get to the door and somehow, that thought almost knocked him off his feet. _It's not real, _he kept telling himself, watching Takahashi's every move, half-expecting him to strike – or another illusion to appear out of thin air.

"We all worked towards the same goal," he heard himself speak and even the realization that he'd taken to deliberating with a ghost – if that – didn't help his cause.

"You were so blind," Takahashi said in an angry whisper, circling around him like a cat ready to pounce his prey. "It was always just you and Mother; only Mother, Mother, Mother – not the people, not any of us. We didn't matter, did we, _Chief_?"

Watari swallowed hard; he remembered that day, when Takahashi had left – _did he? You knew better – _and the argument that took the dispute to a level from which there was no return.

"I stood by your side," he went on, "but you wouldn't listen. And _he _got rid of us, one by one, because we interfered. Because we were still human enough to hold ourselves, and _him_, to a decent standard. Because we saw what you refused to see. You could have stopped it!"

Takahashi was shouting now, shaking with anger and the inner voice that told Watari not to listen, that it wasn't real, was completely lost on him.

"You could have stopped him! You had the power! But no, you were a puppet, and you were proud of it, right? Right!"

Watari screwed his eyes shut, fighting the urge to cover his ears, if only to shut out that voice; to turn away and run, if only not to see that face, for he couldn't deny the truth in Takahashi's words as he had done for two decades, and a half.

"Was it worth it!"

It no longer mattered whether he'd have to get too close or not; Watari pushed past the man – through him, he half-registered – the illusion yielding as they clashed and Takahashi melted into the air.

"_Was it worth it?" _

He still heard that voice behind him as he made for the door, fumbling with the handle that seemed stuck – or maybe his hands were shaking too hard, he couldn't tell. He cursed under his breath, fighting to clear his mind and remember it was only that place; it somehow knew what he feared, what he'd refused to remember, what he--

Out of the lab, Watari leaned against the wall and breathed deeply, a slow labor to calm down his shaken nerves.

"You lied to us."

His eyes snapped open; Watari gasped. Braced against his desk, Tsuzuki watched him with narrowed eyes, with that horribly pained look on his pale face.

Watari took a step back, the first instinct – _that's not real, either – _but the wall behind him left him with nowhere to run. His wide eyes swept a quick look around the room; their office, or was it? It sure looked like it, he could swear it was real if he failed to remember that it couldn't be.

Dead-set on ignoring the puny imitation – _not quite so puny at all – _he took a deep breath, and another, making a conscious effort to relax before the illusion shook him out of control.

"Twenty five years, we've been friends." Tsuzuki's voice trembled, violet eyes swimming with tears. "You're the smart one, Watari; give me the dictionary definition of _friendship_, will you? I must have missed the memo when it changed."

His stomach turned, but Watari clung to that one thought – _not real – _like to a life-saving rope, the only rescue for the one hanging head-first down a bottomless pit. Yet that voice, so cold, sliced through him like a shard of ice.

"We trusted you."

Another one, and he couldn't help but look – so young, yet the undertone reflected the horrors Hisoka, for it was his voice that startled him anew – had endured in his too short life.

Watari shook his head, hard-pressed to respond, despite the logic, and the tightrope trembled beneath him as he swayed.

"With our bodies and our souls," the boy continued, slow steps taking him to his partner's side. Tsuzuki was all but shaking, still leaning against the desk; the first tears had spilled and shone on his face in the artificial light above his head.

"I never--" Watari started but he bit his tongue. _Never lied to you? But I did._

"All those years you've been saying, 'Don't worry, Tsuzuki, it's not your fault Enma won't let go. Just keep going.'" The older Shinigami stared into his face; his voice a mockery of Watari's own tone. "And I did. I believed you. Did you even mean that? You're such a liar, Enma's puppet. I'm so sorry I've ever called you my friend."

_Enough_, Watari's mind wailed; he turned around, eyes shut, hands pressed to his face. He heard the sound of footsteps behind him, growing distant until it was but an echo far away, dissolving into silence that pierced through his mind.

He didn't know how much time had passed before he realized that he was shaking; leaning against the cold wall, his arms braced against it. He wondered how come he could still stand straight; his body felt numb, somehow both burning and cold, and his heart beat hard against his ribs.

His eyes opened slowly; one hand slid down the wall. A small crack in it came into focus; he stared at it, willing his eyes to track each line, every tiny dent and rough edge, until his breath slowed down. With a heavy sigh he brushed one hand across his forehead and he laughed; a harsh, bitter sound.

He had not anticipated _that _sort of a surprise, even though he'd had a taste of Enma's wicked ways many times before. He almost expected to see him, to hear that mocking voice right behind his back. But as tension let go and he laughed again – half cried, was more like it – there was only silence to answer him now. So he laughed; a horrid sound in his own ears, biting down on his lip until he knew that if he bit any harder, he would taste blood.

"Yutaka?"

"I'm not here," he answered, chuckling quietly, to himself. "I'm an illusion, just like you, so don't even bother."

A heavy hand came to rest on his shoulder; finally he turned around, his broken laughter slowly fading off.

"You're not real, Tatsumi," he said tiredly, waving him away. "Nothing's real. Everything is just royally fucked up, that's all."

"Don't say that." Tatsumi took him by the shoulders, a gentle caress, and pulled him close against his chest.

Watari didn't resist. Oddly even to him, he found that he no longer cared. If dolls had spirits, he mused, he could be one of them. It had to be easier, being one; you could be taken into a loving owner's arms, or thrown away like a useless toy, and it made little difference, if any at all.

"Are you hurt?"

That soft whisper was soothing, he thought, so pleasant to hear, even while his mind continued to warn him it could not be real. He shook his head, suppressing another laugh – what did it matter, anyway? He was dead. He could be hurt or die again and it would still be all the same.

He took a sharp breath as Tatsumi's hand slid down his arm, slowly finding way to the small of his back. A soft puff of air tickled his ear; and that warmth, he could drown in it, fall asleep and never wake again.

"It doesn't matter," he slurred, half to himself, under his breath.

Then his eyes snapped open as soft lips brushed against his neck. "Tatsumi?"

"The question," the other whispered, running the tip of his tongue along Watari's earlobe, "is not whether you want this. You do."

Pinned to the wall, Watari gasped for breath. _Go away, _he thought, but he found himself unable to speak.

"The real question, however..." Teasing, soothing; long fingers brushed the golden strands away from Watari's face. "...is whether you can forgive yourself."

His heart seemed to stop for a whole eternity, or more, the moment Watari caught a glimpse of black, silky hair weaving down the arms that held him in a tight embrace. He pushed those arms away, stumbling to escape, to be anywhere but there, with anyone but _him_.

Enma pulled back. He tilted his head. "Can you?"

---

-

* * *

**Author's Note:**

Akane and Takahashi are original characters, but not: they are based on the nameless people featured in Watari's memories in _Yami no Matsuei_ chapter 58, published in Hana to Yume. Akane's _"Chief--Watari-san... please, come back..."_ and Takahashi's _"In the end, you've sold your head and your body to the JuuOhCho. Go to Hell, you make me sick!"_ lines are not mine - they're from the manga. As for Akane, the explanation of why she accuses Watari of using her (and what he means by 'it was your choice') can be found in **Absit Omen**, a side story to Against the Wind (see my profile for the link), which covers the events of twenty five years prior and fleshes out her character a bit more as well.


	6. Chapter Five

The music: Sarah McLachlan - _Gloomy Sunday_, _Full of Grace_

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**Against the Wind **  
Chapter Five

-

_17 hours earlier_

_- _

Tatsumi never quite liked falling asleep.

The troubles that weighed on his mind often wrenched him out of the soothing arms of sleep, chasing away the sand from under his weary eyelids. He never liked lying awake well into the night, battling himself, thinking and analyzing his mistakes and the seemingly good choices that, on second thought, could have been substituted with ones much better than those he had made.

Waking up, though, was another matter. Whether he woke from a peaceful sleep, or from an occasional nightmare, he appreciated the first minutes back in the waking world; those brief instances of undisturbed, lazy peace. The shadows shifted at the edge of his mind, prodding his consciousness to overcome the sleepy tangles that held him tight through the nighttime rest.

And each morning, as he woke alone, that stubborn cold of his bedroom was the only thing that tainted his mood. Sometimes he let himself wonder how it would feel not to wake alone anymore. Sometimes he let himself remember how that felt; but that hurt, and so those thoughts weren't welcome at all. Most times he wasted no precious minutes dwelling on loneliness – he loathed that word, anyway – and let another day begin, pushing himself again into the whirlwind of work that defined him and helped him go on.

Rubbing sleepy eyes, Tatsumi shifted his weight. His muscles felt strained, his neck stiff. As he moved his arm and felt something pin it down, rendering movement all but impossible, he remembered. Last night, he had come here – to Watari's apartment, he confirmed as he looked around – and had found the man less than half of his usual self. Quiet, as if frightened; as though someone had flipped an invisible switch somewhere in his mind and made Watari's usual warm, lighthearted exterior fall completely apart.

In bright daylight, the apartment looked even worse than Tatsumi remembered from the night before. Contrasting sharply with the cheerful sunshine seeping in through the half-drawn blinds, the shattered glass and bloody stains on the once-white walls stood out, and painfully so.

Tatsumi remembered blood; some of his nightmares almost reeked of it. The sight itself would not have been so bad; but the knowledge of whose blood it was, and the lack of knowledge why, cast a dark veil on his mind.

Carefully, he turned to look at Watari. Still asleep, he was drawing shallow breaths; a dead weight in his arms, he noted uneasily. Strangely enough, the sensation of holding someone that he still remembered was different in his memory. He had thought it would be more familiar. Warmer, he mused reluctantly. Watari's hair was a pitiful mess, but he wore a clean, unstained shirt. Tatsumi didn't remember him changing; the assumption that he must have woken at night to do that was a safe one. Somehow, though, that only fueled the uneasy feeling that had begun to eat away at him, even before Tatsumi himself was awake enough to put his finger on it.

He freed his arm, somewhat numb from having been pinned down in one position for a long time, and glanced at his watch. It read 7:36; the same time Tatsumi always woke up on his own. A pleasant constant, that; he couldn't remember the last time he needed an alarm clock. Stretching a little to relieve the tension in his muscles, he looked at Watari's sleeping face. Without his glasses, the scientist didn't even look his physical twenty four years. There was a gentleness to his soft features, something that made Watari look deceptively vulnerable.

Despite that, Tatsumi had never thought of him that way. Watari was nothing if not perfectly capable of standing his ground; something he had been proving on an almost daily basis for the past quarter of a century. Tatsumi had gone all the way from annoyance to awe at the persistence with which Watari could pursue his goals. He had always seemed-- unafraid, Tatsumi supposed was the best description; daredevil, untamed.

Until last night, anyway. Last night, Tatsumi realized, it felt as though he had passed through an invisible gate, beyond which there was a different world with a different Watari in it. And that Watari had bloody stains on his clothes, and a whole extra dimension to him Tatsumi had never seen before. Yet, he had easily decided, it fell somewhat short of his liking. Watari had been something akin to a constant in Tatsumi's life as well - an annoying one, but there nonetheless.

Yet another illusion, that.

Tatsumi had to wonder, his most private feelings aside, if such a breach of his colleague's privacy was necessary at all. In the end, it wasn't as though he actually did much to help. He had come to apologize, and not even that had made it past his lips. True, he admitted, the time was anything but suitable for bringing up something that Watari would surely dismiss as trivial. It was not nearly as trivial to Tatsumi, though.

"Watari-san," he said quietly. He put a gentle hand on the man's shoulder, intending to wake but not to startle him.

With no response, Tatsumi repeated in a somewhat louder tone. It was getting late; they both would have to arrive in the office soon. About to shake him again as Watari failed to wake, he leaned over his slender form curled up on the couch and his voice caught in his throat.

The small parts of flesh he could see beneath the collar of Watari's shirt were punctured; half-healed skin still bruised. His hand trembled ever so slightly as Tatsumi reached out and pulled the collar open a little further. More bruises and, before he knew, Tatsumi was holding Watari's hand in his, rolling up one sleeve, just to discover even more bruised, punctured skin.

His mind raced along the facts; it must have been no later than one in the morning when he had come. Whatever had happened, Watari would have healed by now. Inhaling deeply to calm himself down, Tatsumi cast another quick glance around the room. Significant as the damage appeared, he couldn't sense any magical influence at work. He thought back to when he had first arrived. No trace of spell-casting back then, either. Nothing on the level he could have perceived, anyway.

"Watari-san." Tatsumi's voice held a higher-pitched note now, betraying the fear that settled deep in his chest. "Wake up. Watari-san," he repeated. Over and over again, his voice subconsciously dropping to a whisper as he took the younger man by the shoulders and tried to shake him awake.

A wave of hot, numbing fear washed over him. He had been there, he realized. All that time, the entire night, he had been there – hadn't he stayed to ensure nothing would go wrong again? And yet it had; something horribly wrong had happened, and he failed to stop it. He held still, listening. Watari's breathing was even. But he wouldn't wake, Tatsumi heard himself whisper. _What in Enma's name had happened here?_

He touched Watari's face; the cool, slightly damp skin under his palm made him shiver. Watari's hands were ice-cold when he took them in his, and he wasn't moving, save the rhythmical breathe-in, breathe-out, time and again. A very shallow intake of air, like in someone lost in slumber.

The next few minutes were a blur in his mind, with ripples of fear and a voice of responsibility tugging at his conscience. Tatsumi gathered his partner in his arms, swaying a little as he stood up. Watari's body felt heavy, boneless, his head lolling backwards with nothing to support it. Tatsumi cursed soundlessly, shifting him until he could hold him in a safer, more comfortable way. Until the last second he hoped that it was some practical joke on Watari's part; he even vaguely remembered saying as much, out loud, as if hoping it would wake him up. It hadn't.

-

He transported them both to EnmaCho's infirmary, cursing the early hour; nobody had shown up yet. Tatsumi second-guessed the idea of moving Watari there after he had laid him down on one of the beds. But, in the end, it seemed better than staying in that wrecked apartment, where every look around doubled the nauseating fear.

Tatsumi took off his glasses and wiped his face with his hands. A stubborn little voice at the back of his mind kept whispering, it's your fault. Your fault, all of it.

And logic didn't matter when it told him that it wasn't true. That it could not have been. Watari had not so much as told him what had happened. I couldn't have helped you any more, he argued with himself in his thoughts. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know, I didn't do anything--

And that, he mused bitterly, could have been his biggest mistake. You were there, his own thoughts chided. You were there all along.

Tatsumi turned his head. He didn't want to look. He could have sworn Watari was just asleep, but there had to be – something, he couldn't begin to guess – and past the point of coming here, he didn't know what else he could do.

This would be the moment, he thought, when he should get angry. As he always had when something horrible had happened; to one of his colleagues, or anything at all. There had always been a culprit Tatsumi could have focused his built up negativity on, somebody to blame for the misfortune at hand. But as he stood there, his back to Watari but a clear image of him still before his eyes, he was at a loss as to who, sans himself, he could hold responsible for this.

The ringing of his cell phone pulled Tatsumi out of his reverie. He noted, quite dismayed, that his hand was trembling as he fumbled for it in the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

_"Tatsumi-san,"_ the voice in the receiver, to the point as always, rang with a slightly harsh tone. Tatsumi frowned.

_"I have no idea where you are, but definitely not where you're supposed to be. Please hurry up."_

Tatsumi glanced at his watch and winced. "I'll be right there, Chief."

He turned off his phone and slid it back into the pocket. On top of everything, he had just managed to disgrace himself by being late for work. He realized that he hadn't even noticed where the time had gone. Displeased with himself, he straightened his jacket and fixed his askew tie.

The phone call had distracted him just a little, lifting some of the unease off his chest. But it returned with full force as he turned to look at his partner again. Watari looked as though he slept, his chest rising and falling in a calm, steady rhythm. So misleading, Tatsumi thought, fighting guilt that crashed down on him with the realization that he had no choice now but to leave Watari alone.

"I'll be back," he said quietly, and he caught himself wondering whether the reassurance served himself, or the silence around him. "As soon as I can."  
--

Konoe's face bore faint hints of annoyance, but Tatsumi found himself fairly unconcerned. He could handle it, he knew, as he had for years now; never with anything less than success. He drew a calming breath, if only to make sure his voice would sound normal, and inclined his head in acknowledgment of the chief as he entered the office and stood in front of Konoe's desk.

"It's unlike you to be late, Tatsumi," Konoe grumbled, looking up from a set of papers he had apparently been reading for a while before.

"I apologize," Tatsumi started, his voice contrite yet firm. "It will not happen again. However," he cleared his throat. His hand subconsciously wandered up to push his glasses up his nose; an action so instinctive he never really thought about it anymore. "I'm afraid we have a problem."

"A problem?" Konoe raised an eyebrow, a hint of concern drawing the corners of his lips down in an expression of hesitant anticipation.

"I'm afraid so," Tatsumi nodded. "It's Watari-san--"

"What about Watari?"

A sleep-laced voice interrupted him. Tatsumi turned around.

Rubbing the back of his head with one hand, Tsuzuki stifled a yawn. Tatsumi shrugged inwardly. He thought of what he would have to say to explain the situation to them, to _Tsuzuki-san_ of all people, and suddenly it seemed so awkward, so inappropriate. At once he was glad he did not blush easily.

"Well," he started. Relief was a welcome change as his mind stumbled upon a much better way to handle that. "I think it would be best if you came with me."

"Tatsumi?" All traces of sleep escaped Tsuzuki now that he was frowning, staring him up and down, worried and alarmed.

Tatsumi squished his little inner voice that seemed intent on complicating everything even more.

"Tatsumi?" he repeated. "Did something happen?"

"Tsuzuki-san." Tatsumi's eyes softened; an automatic reassurance, though he could use that himself, right now. "This is something we need to find out. I'm sure it can be explained."

"Right." Tsuzuki looked nervous now, glancing over his shoulder at the door, checking his watch, his gaze shifting from Tatsumi to Konoe, to the door again, and back to the Shadow Master.

The chief hesitated. "I have no idea what's going on here, but it had better be important."

Tatsumi only nodded, stepping away to make room for Konoe. The older man raised a questioning eyebrow.

"The infirmary," Tatsumi said, gesturing towards the door.

Tsuzuki started at that loathed word; it meant something _had_ happened, and it could not have been anything but bad, and by now the Shinigami was completely consumed by worry. He picked up his pace, time and again looking back at Tatsumi who suddenly felt like his legs had gained a leaden cast that turned the simple act of walking into an arduous labor.

He shrugged. He had to pull himself together, he thought, it was getting ridiculous. He told himself there was nothing inappropriate in what he had done as he sped up to catch up with Tsuzuki. Still, the thought of having to relay the events of the past eight hours to everyone who asked – because he knew that was expected of him, of all people – made his stomach flip backwards. Uncomfortable didn't even begin to describe the way he felt.

"Is Watari alright?" Tsuzuki asked as soon as Tatsumi leveled with him in the narrow corridor.

That frown on his former partner's face did nothing to make him feel any more secure. "I'm afraid I lack the qualifications to answer that question, Tsuzuki-san," he said.

The other Shinigami's eyebrows drew even closer together. "Would you stop being so cryptic, Tatsumi?" he asked. That annoyed, impatient tone seemed so uncharacteristic for him, yet Tatsumi wasn't surprised by its presence. "Just tell us what this is all about, it will be easier that way."

They walked along a dimly lit part of the hall now, the half-darkness like a balm on Tatsumi's mind. Nothing wrong, he told himself again. You did nothing wrong.

"I found Watari-san unconscious this morning," he began his explanation, schooling his voice to a matter-of-fact tone.

"In his lab?" Konoe asked, looking over his shoulder.

Tatsumi cleared his throat. "In his apartment."

Tsuzuki's eyes grew wide. He skipped a step. "Tatsumi, what were you doing at Watari's place in the _morning_?"

The Shadow Master took a deep breath to regain his composure. Everyone would have done that, he told himself. Wouldn't they? "I went there last night to discuss something with him," he said.

Tsuzuki opened his mouth, his eyes growing even larger. Tatsumi fixed him with an ice-cold glare, and Tsuzuki bit back whatever comment he'd had on the tip of his tongue. Tatsumi had a fairly good idea what that could have been, and he would rather not have Tsuzuki say it.

"Something had happened there before I arrived," he continued calmly, though on the inside he was anything but calm. His heart rate went through the roof at the memory of the sight that greeted him the previous night. "His apartment was damaged. So was Watari-san, if you could put it that way, though he insisted that he wasn't hurt. I stayed with him to make sure he had all the help he needed."

Tsuzuki bit down on his lip to suppress a smile. "The whole night?"

"Tsuzuki," Konoe huffed. "Let the man finish. Tatsumi," he turned to look at the Shadow Master. "When you say 'damaged', you mean what, exactly?"

Tatsumi let out a soundless sigh, shrugging off the images his memory supplied as he thought back in time. "A lot of broken glass, like a tornado had hurled through the place. Blood on the wall, on the floor, and a complete disorder everywhere. Watari-san's clothes were torn as well. The lights were out, but I would have noticed serious injury if he had sustained any."

Konoe frowned. For a moment, the only sound sans the silence was the echo of three pairs of shoes against the tiled floor.

"Did he say what happened?" the chief asked at last as they stopped in front of a door.

Tatsumi gave his head a light shake. "No. He refused to tell, and I didn't insist. It didn't seem like an appropriate moment for that, his state considered."

Konoe rested his hand on the door handle. "And what happened in the morning?"

Tatsumi suppressed a shiver. He almost felt Tsuzuki tense at his side, the twinkle in his violet eyes gone when Tatsumi met them for a short, fleeting second.

"I tried to wake him up, but with no success. So I brought him here," he explained. He had to chase away an afterthought that he just didn't know what else he could have done. Such situations were anything but common and, if they happened at all, they had always had Watari to take care of it--

His train of thought broke off with the click of the lock as Konoe opened the door. Tatsumi let him and Tsuzuki enter first, following suit soon after.

He still half-hoped to see Watari awake as they came in, grinning sheepishly and ducking a little under Tatsumi's relieved but still icy glare. But no such thing happened. Watari looked exactly the same as when Tatsumi had left him; in the same position, breathing lightly, an eerily strange expression on his face. Or lack thereof, Tatsumi noted. Almost as though something – someone? - had sucked his soul out of the man's body and left only that shell, stripped of will or self, unresponsive, with no spirit to breathe the true force of life into it.

There was a pang in his heart as Tatsumi noticed, out of the corner of his eye, how Tsuzuki bit his lips at the sight of his friend.

"The strange thing," Tatsumi said, as much to distract himself as Tsuzuki out of his reverie, "are these." He walked up and took Watari's hand in his, once again unpleasantly surprised at how cold it felt. He rolled up one of Watari's sleeves. The bruises were still there, though for some reason, Tatsumi had been half-expecting them to have disappeared. He swallowed down the uneasy fear that reestablished itself in his stomach.

Chief Konoe raised an eyebrow, stepping forth to take a closer look. Tsuzuki took a step back. He swallowed audibly.

"These look like he was tied up," Konoe said, running one finger along a thin bruise around Watari's left wrist.

Tatsumi nodded. "I thought about that, too. But I saw him less than an hour earlier, last night--" he broke off as he met two pairs of surprised eyes, one after another.

_Great._ He refused to dwell on how _that_ must have made him look. "What you're saying," he continued, hellbent on appearing unfazed, "is that in under an hour someone had captured Watari-san, tied him up, hurt him, damaged his house and left, just before I came in?" He heard a dubious note in his own voice as he spoke. That indeed sounded somewhat improbable. "It's too much of a coincidence," he said, shaking his head. "Too... synchronized, if I dare say so myself."

Konoe scratched his forehead. "Perhaps he was experimenting with something?" he guessed. He, too, sounded unconvinced of such a theory.

"I can't tell." Tatsumi sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. He wondered if he was the only one who noticed how cold the room suddenly seemed. "What worries me right now is that I don't know how to wake him up. I mean..." he stopped and looked at Watari's face again. His heart clenched with another surge of disturbing fear. "He's breathing, his heart rate is steady, and--" he looked away. "Apart from the fact that he is very cold, everything seems normal."

"Hmm." Konoe tapped his chin with his thumb. "Tsuzuki, is Kurosaki-kun in the office?"

Tsuzuki frowned. His kept his arms wrapped around him, and he looked like he had to force himself to step forth to rejoin the other two by the side of Watari's bed. "He's in the library. Why?"

"I'm not nearly competent enough to tell for sure, but this doesn't seem like a physical problem, to me." Konoe looked at Tatsumi with serious eyes. "Besides; Tatsumi, how many hours ago did you say you found him first?"

"Eight," Tatsumi said.

"If it were a normal injury, he would have healed by now."

"I didn't sense any trace of spell-casting, chief," Tatsumi said, once again shaking his head.

"Still." Konoe turned to Tsuzuki. "Bring Kurosaki here," he ordered. "Fill him in on everything you've heard so far. Maybe he will be able to help."

Tsuzuki gave him a nod, then he turned on his heel and walked out of the infirmary. Tatsumi stared after him for a while, until the door closed behind him and there was an all but dead silence in the room again.

He held still as he turned around, the sight before him not something he had expected to find. Chief Konoe stood with his back to him, his head slightly bowed. Tatsumi could see how his hand rested on Watari's head, gently stroking his hair; the movement of his hand almost imperceptible, but still very much there.

"For what it's worth," Konoe said, not turning around, "We're the closest to a family one can get, in this place."

There was weariness in his voice, and something like a fatherly concern that Tatsumi sometimes heard when the chief spoke of Tsuzuki; an undertone that underlined even his angry voice when one of them did something wrong.

"For him, it has never been just a job," he quietly went on. "Sometimes I wonder if he will ever move on. It seems like his business can never reach the final end."

Something in the way Konoe spoke, the distant, wistful tone, made Tatsumi's heart skip a beat. The momentary battle between the genuine need to know and his natural restraint from prying into the affairs of others ended with him leaning towards silence.

Konoe said no more. Soon enough, the door swung open again and Tsuzuki walked in, his young partner close behind. Tatsumi almost smiled at the sight of the similarity with which they carried themselves; both with arms crossed over their chests, walking briskly with a certain, now characteristic, resolve in their demeanor. Too well did Tatsumi remember a time when such resolve was far too rare in his former partner.

"Konoe-kachou, Tatsumi-san," Hisoka greeted them both with a small nod.

"Kurosaki-kun," Tatsumi and the chief both turned to return the greeting. "Has Tsuzuki filled you in on everything?"

Hisoka confirmed with another nod. "Yes. May I?" He moved closer, looking down at Watari. He winced. "What has he done this time?" he asked.

"We don't know," Tatsumi said flatly. "But maybe you can find out."

"I doubt it," the boy's matter-of-fact tone sent a small shiver down Tatsumi's spine. "But I can try." He sat down at the edge of the bed and took a deep breath.

"Hisoka?" Tsuzuki prodded. He stood behind his partner and put a hand on his shoulder. "Can you feel anything at all?"

Kurosaki removed his partner's hand; quite gently, Tatsumi noticed, without annoyance. "Strange," he said, shaking his head. "Nothing. But let me try something else..." his voice trailed off as he reached out and put one hand on Watari's chest.

Tatsumi watched the boy's small form grow almost rigid at the moment of physical contact. Tsuzuki moved to reach out for him, but Tatsumi caught him by the arm. He mouthed a voiceless, 'wait', almost pleading with the other man to give the boy time to try.

They both watched Hisoka, concerned, somewhat wary. Tatsumi could swear he felt something shift in the air; like the trembling ripples of spiritual energy moved uneasily under a disturbance of its natural flow. Time slowed down for him as he waited; Tsuzuki shifted uncomfortably at his side, itching to pull his partner out of his strange, trance-like state. Hisoka's eyes were closed, and he squeezed them tighter still as the seconds passed. He seemed to hunch a little and pulled back, forcefully, before he doubled over and pressed one hand to his forehead.

"Hisoka?" Unrestrained, Tsuzuki reached for the boy and caught him by the shoulders. The blond was breathing hard, rubbing his forehead with two fingers of his right hand.

"How... strange," he breathed.

"What?" Tatsumi heard himself demand before he realized the word had slipped through his mouth at all.

Hisoka turned to look at him, and that expression in his deep green eyes chilled Tatsumi down to the bone.

"Kurosaki-kun?"

A deep frown creased the boy's forehead. His otherwise youthful features showed clear signs of his true age. "It looks like-- a dream," he said, wiping his face with the back of his hand. "But it doesn't feel like one. If that makes sense to you."

Vaguely so, Tatsumi thought, but he remained silent.

Tsuzuki gently squeezed the boy's arm. "What did you see?"

Hisoka ignored him. "The pattern is strange. Like something is holding Watari-san's consciousness captive, like he's..." he broke off, searching for the right words. "Like he's living, or reliving something that is only happening in his mind, but..." he stopped again and frowned. "His emotions are genuine. And strong. Not dulled like in a normal dream. As if he really were there, in that room, and it really happened, and--"

"What room?" Tsuzuki cut in, confused.

Tatsumi felt equally puzzled. All of a sudden the situation seemed even more awkward than it had before. He had a bad feeling about this.

Hisoka's green eyes met his.

"Kurosaki-kun?" Tatsumi held up that stare, but it made him feel exposed, caught in the act. Only he didn't know what that could possibly have been.

"Watari-san's apartment," the boy offered reluctantly. "He and you are in it."

Tatsumi raised an eyebrow. Subconsciously he held his breath. "Dare I ask?" he managed at last. His palms went damp. Suddenly it was far too hot and the room seemed much too small for him.

"Uh, well," Hisoka looked slightly away. "It looked like you were fighting. Facing off, and you held Watari-san... restrained him, with your shadow magic."

Tatsumi felt himself pale. For a second there was a dead silence around him, and then a rush of blood through his ears, the furious pounding of his heart.

"Tatsumi..." Tsuzuki started carefully, an intent look fixed upon his face. The Shadow Master felt all but crushed under that stare. "Tatsumi, is that what happened at Watari's place?" he asked.

Tatsumi released the breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. "No!" he said; almost yelled, he realized, though his own voice sounded as distant to him as though it were a whisper. "No.." he repeated, quietly this time. "I would never hurt him." He looked up, meeting that familiar amethyst gaze. "Never."

Tsuzuki nodded. Tatsumi could see that the other believed him; though he still seemed to ponder something he didn't have the mind to share. Tatsumi's thoughts whirled as he tried to parse what he had just heard. Fighting Watari? With his shadows? Never.

"There's something else."

Hisoka's voice brought Tatsumi back to the present, to that stuffy room that threatened to suffocate him with the lack of air or enough space to breathe. He stole a brief look at Watari before he turned to the boy again. Something in his heart cringed at the thought that he could have done that.. anything like that. Ever. No, he thought. Just no.

"What is it, Hisoka?" Tsuzuki asked gently. This time he wasn't pushed away when he rested a reassuring hand against Hisoka's back.

"I tried to read on, but it suddenly felt like... this will sound strange." He shrugged. "Like _something_ realized I was there and forced me to pull back."

"Watari pushed you out of that dream – or whatever it is?" Tsuzuki asked.

Hisoka shook his head. "Not Watari. He didn't even notice me. It was something else. I couldn't put my finger on it. Something strong, an energy, like a separate entity--"

"Possession?" chief Konoe asked. He moved closer towards Hisoka.

"No, it didn't feel like that. More like..." Looking up to meet Tatsumi's eyes, Kurosaki's resolve to stay composed faltered and there was only confusion on his boyish face.

"Like it's _protecting_ him. Odd as it sounds, since Watari-san seems to be trapped in there, and he isn't enjoying himself, either. But it sure felt that way."

One hand sliding into his pocket, Tsuzuki shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "And what does that mean?" he asked uneasily.

"That I can't pull him out of it, unless I either find out what it is, or how to override it," Hisoka explained, a distant look on his face. "Or both, preferably. But I've never felt anything like that. I have no clue as to what it might be."

The chief cleared his throat. "It's useless to stand here and ponder it the whole day," he said. He went back to the matter-of-fact tone of the boss he always summoned when a situation threatened to slip out of control. "Kurosaki-kun, go back to the library. See if you can find anything even vaguely resembling this. I suppose someone could try to check Watari's computer, as well."

Tsuzuki snorted. "Good luck. Watari is a security obsessive. It would take a mind matching his to get into his files."

"Well." Konoe's shoulders slumped a little. "Talk to the Gushoshin brothers. They often work with him, maybe they'll be able to help. Do what you can; there's not much else we can do right now, anyway. Please report back if you find anything."

Hisoka nodded an affirmative. "I'll see what I can do," he said.

"The two of you," Konoe turned to Tsuzuki and Tatsumi. "Go back to the office. Sitting here won't help, and you have work to do."

Tsuzuki pouted, but any argument was extinguished at the core before he had a chance to voice it when Tatsumi reinforced the chief's orders with a pointed look of his own.

Truth be told, he was reluctant to leave the infirmary, himself. He would rather stay there and make sure Watari was all right; that he wasn't alone when he woke up – _if_, his thoughts supplied, and Tatsumi recoiled inwardly. He knew well enough that if his presence had prevented nothing the night before, the odds of it changing anything for the better now looked rather pathetic, all facts considered.

Konoe halted, leaning in doorway. "Tatsumi?" he urged him gently.

"I'm coming," Tatsumi said, and he knew that sting of regret that shot through his heart reflected in the tone of his voice. A part of him fought for the right to stay. The logical part told him he was better off away, for now, until he cleared his head and rearranged his thoughts, found his ground again.

He reached out his hand and, from where he stood, it took only a small movement for his fingers to brush lightly across the back of Watari's cold hand. Then he turned on his heel and followed Konoe out of the room.  
-

Tatsumi put on his best neutral front, but it only held until he walked into his office and shut the door behind him.

On some level, he regretted not having witnessed what Kurosaki had seen and told them about. Some part of him craved that pain; he wanted to live it through himself, for he began to feel as though reality had started slipping through his fingers and a bitter reverie threatened to overwhelm him. For the most part, though, he was glad to have retained his logic; he knew it would not have done him any good at all.

He found none of his usual, welcome escape in work. He ended up automatically going through his daily tasks, sparing them only as much attention as he deemed necessary. His mind continued to drift off towards the medical facility of EnmaCho; to the man who lay there, unaware and oblivious to the turmoil he caused in the Shadow Master's heart.

The shadows shifted around him; silky tendrils of black brushed against their master's arms. Drowned in twilight, with the blinds drawn and the sun sinking low towards the end of the day, his office swam with ghostly ribbons; their movement soft and smooth across the walls. Tatsumi watched them sweep around the corners, lurk under his desk, sneak slowly up his chair and around his shoulders again. A feeble comfort, that, but at least it managed to somewhat soothe his mind.

He had put away the last report he had been reading when the letters began to blur in front of his eyes. He caught himself looking at one word and almost having his mind convince him it read something else. He went over a sentence and he might have as well not read it at all, for all the comprehension and memory of it that stayed in his mind. Just a residue, that; much like everything else all throughout the day. Even his usual strict policy regarding the importance of the office work didn't help the cause. Focus escaped him; or, if he were to be honest with himself, it fled to where Tatsumi himself really wanted to be.

He gave up on scorning Watari in his thoughts after he had caught himself doing that the first time. It was not the scientist's fault; whether Watari had anything to do with his current state or not, Tatsumi knew better than to unrighteously shift the blame onto another. It changed nothing in the long run, anyway. Chiding himself for letting his mind stray soon proved useless as well. A futile task; he couldn't help it.

Past the office hours, when most people had left, he sneaked out of his own room and strolled slowly down the dimly lit corridor; back and forth, time and again, until he lost the count of both the lapses and his own footsteps. Every sound mingled with too loud thoughts in his troubled mind, where he remembered telling himself that it felt good, last night. That it was fine to care. That acting on it was no crime, no shame.

But fate, it seemed, was a mistress of a changing heart. Swept up and down and pushed to whirl helplessly in place until he couldn't tell which way was down, Tatsumi had to admit that his own heart was a treacherous thing.

In the end, he let it lead his feet to where he wished to go.

Halfway through the hall he stood and let some of the tension loose with a deep sigh. It surprised him how that made him shudder; and he, the habitually cool and composed man, found himself weary, his usual drive and energy all but gone. I just want to understand, he thought frantically. Even if he suspected he wouldn't like it, he just wanted to know.

There were voices inside the room; hushed, desperate in Tatsumi's ears, and his attempt at calming down his shaky nerves rolled back to square one. He didn't have the mind to suppress the shiver that made the small hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He pulled the door open with a trembling hand and entered.

He stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of the scene that played out inside. For the first few seconds he felt as though he was watching a movie; the silent spectator, locked out on outskirts of a distant place. The sound that reached him seemed eerily muffled, the pictures shifting rapidly before his eyes. He tried to make sense of what he was looking at; frustration gnawed at him as he was failing miserably.

Hisoka was on the floor, shuddering violently; he tried to speak between rapid gasps. Tears ran down his face; his small hands searched Tsuzuki's, seeking comfort, connection to reality, reassurance of any tangible kind. The older man held him tight and, from what Tatsumi could tell, tried to soothe him with gentle, calming words.

He looked up and violet eyes locked on Tatsumi's; a helpless, wordless plea to do something. Anything at all.

Tatsumi took a few tentative steps towards them on shaking legs. Slowly he began to understand. Watari was curled up on his bed; still not conscious as far as he could tell. But his pale face was wet with tears; like Hisoka's, who slowly worked to regain his breath.

Numbness washed over him; the fear that crushed his senses melted into him, until he could no longer tell where reality ended and this nightmare began.

"What happened?" he asked. His own voice sounded strange in his ears. Like everything else in this alien world that could not be real, he played his part because he had no other choice. Or so it felt; but Tatsumi could no longer tell which emotion he should be paying heed.

Tsuzuki swallowed thickly; one arm still wrapped around his partner, rhythmically stroking his back, rocking them both back and forth. "Hisoka tried again," he explained, his voice shaken. "I don't know what exactly happened, but it looked like for a moment he got pulled in and I lost him and then he was back and he only kept repeating how much it hurt..."

At first, Tsuzuki's frantic words made little sense to him. But Tatsumi resolved not to give up now.

"Kurosaki-kun," he said, trying for the gentlest tone he could manage. "What did you see?"

Hisoka's eyes were wide, his pupils dilated; he was staring at Tatsumi as though he saw a ghost.

"Hisoka?" Tatsumi tried again. Something in the boy's frightened stare told him he should not have asked. But he had to, he thought. He needed to know. There was no other way.

The young Shinigami's breathing was still labored, but he regained some manner of composure after a few more seconds had passed. He tried to stand up; at first Tsuzuki moved to hold him down, but Hisoka waved him off. He pulled himself up to his feet, leaning heavily on his partner's arm.

"An illusion," he gasped. "Don't know how but it was--" he broke off. His eyes grew wider still. He froze.

Tatsumi followed his line of sight.

Watari sat upright; motionless save the minute trembling with a clear-cut effort just to breathe. His amber eyes pierced through Tatsumi; a look that all but screamed at him, and a voice in his mind that had Watari's tone did exactly as much. The silence dissolved and Tatsumi cursed himself, but he looked away.

"Enma," Hisoka breathed somewhere to his right.

Tatsumi barely registered the sound.

"It was Enma." _  
_


	7. Chapter Six

Huge Thank-you to **Kara Angitia** and **Lothlorien1** for their suggestions and help ♥

The music:

Ben Harper : _Amen Omen_  
Theatre of Tragedy : _Angelique_  
Gensomaden Saiyuki : _For Real (Piano Version)  
_

* * *

- 

**Against the Wind**  
Chapter Five

-

The faces blurred before his eyes. The voices melted into a mind-shattering scream. Then, there was only blue.

That endless depth, redrawn in tender lines in his memory so many times before; it swallowed him whole, filled him, sucked him in. He couldn't see well. It didn't matter. That sapphire sky was his sky, and it was oceans too, and air, and it took him.

It made him sick.

Between a rock and a hard place, Watari no longer knew which way to run. But run he did, and blindly so; out of the room, stumbling and nearly falling over whatever stood in his way. He heard them call out his name. The sound was so painfully familiar; he craved it, he longed to hear it, to let it soothe him, but all it did was make him sick again. The chaos whirled and reigned inside him. _Enough, _something in him screamed, over and over again.

He didn't stop until he stormed into his lab, finding his way by the sheer force of habit. Dry heaves sent him down to the floor, to his knees, where he wrapped his arms around himself in a feeble attempt to keep his slender frame from shaking. He screwed his eyes shut. _No._

Half-aware of being elsewhere, now, he still only saw one face in his mind's eye; he tried to cling to it with all willpower he could spare. But it kept shifting into that endless black and pale skin; those cold, cold hands were touching him again, claiming him, staining him in a way he hadn't known before. Branding him, with a mark that would not come off no matter how he tried to force himself out of its grasp.

_You are mine. _

He looked up, squinting to see around him. There was a dead weight upon his chest as he frantically tried to concentrate on what had happened, plowing through the wild whirlwind of his thoughts. Impossible, a weak inner voice of logic told him, but he knew better. It could not have been anything else. It couldn't have.

He fought to clear his mind, but his head was pounding. It left him nauseated and limp, supporting his weight against the wall as he slowly stood up; breath hitching, eyes burning. Half-conscious of what must have been tears dripping down on his hand, Watari wiped his face with his sleeve. It hurts, he heard his own voice amidst the chaos in his mind. Hurts.

The claws of pain ripped into him, tore him apart, and it was _so hard _to think, to wrap his mind around any of this. He slammed his fist into the wall, frustration taking over and only a faint voice of reason left to tell him not to lose control.

He made his way to a cabinet nearby, fumbling with the lock with awfully shaking hands. If the loss of his glasses hadn't done the trick, the pain blurred his vision all the more. He felt around the shelf for a bottle of pain relievers. It seemed like forever until he shook a handful onto his palm and forced them down his throat. _Wait it out. _

Slumping down, he bent himself in half and pressed both hands to his temples. Once, twice, applying pressure with as much precision as his trembling arms allowed.

Someone was pounding on the door, he realized when the cacophony of assaulting noise dispersed. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped. He wondered if the voices he heard were really there, but it could have been his own thoughts. Then footsteps, far away, and silence again. Stretching long and brittle between the pulsating assaults of the ache in his head.

Minutes later, his next lucid thought was a blessing of auto-engaging locks.

-

Watari counted seconds to help his mind get back on track. He counted his breaths, each next one slower, deeper, forcing his body to calm down. As always when such an excruciating pain threatened to overpower his senses, he pictured how the medicine he'd taken dissolved and traveled through him. How it found the sources of pain and extinguished them as it swept around the fibers of his flesh, the nerves, the cells. It helped. A distraction was as good a method as any, and one he'd relied on more often than he cared to admit.

003 was quiet on his shoulder, as if sensing her human's discomfort surpassed anything she could soothe. When the pain subsided a little, Watari leaned back, his eyes closed. His hand wandered up to stroke the owl's feathers; a touch of something familiar was a welcome change.

"An illusion," he whispered.

Hisoka had said that, he remembered now. The boy must have tried to read him. Watari hoped he hadn't hurt him.

"But how?" He shook his head and winced, immediately regretting it. He held still.

And at once he was back in the sharp claws of fear as he realized the consequences that carried. Every level of what that meant. Hisoka had got a clearer visual of Enma than he would have liked, he could bet on that. The kid had said as much, his still hazy memory supplied. By now, everyone knew. They had unwittingly entered the game, he thought, taming the panic that began to eat its way through him again.

Tatsumi, he would have been discreet. So long as it didn't affect his performance at work, he would have kept to himself what he had found out the night before. But now Bon, and Tsuzuki, and he suspected chief Konoe as well, they all knew.

Watari groaned, sweeping his palms over his face. He should remember, he mused, to update his personal definition of failure after all of this.

Then there was the illusion. Balancing on a thin edge between awe and disbelief, Watari thought back to the past twenty four hours. He recalled every detail, every moment, every word that had lodged itself in his mind. And even though he couldn't understand how, he had little doubt left. It couldn't have been anything but that.

"But I destroyed it," he murmured absently in a soft voice, rubbing a still sore temple.

003 flew down from his shoulder and hopped onto his lap. She hooted worriedly.

"I'd bet my head on it, girl," he said. He laughed bitterly. Unfortunate choice of words, that. "I destroyed it. Twenty five years ago."

A by-product of the process of creation of Mother's security system, the semi-intelligent virtual reality had become his favorite side project, back then. Drawing data from his own memory, it continuously adjusted itself to emulate reality as closely as the system allowed. Back then, it had been far from perfect; the computer had choked on the real-time updates too often to his liking, causing glitches in the program that somewhat spoiled the game.

And on that fateful day, quarter of a century ago, when Watari had left the Five Generals to their own devices, that program had been among the casualties of his farewell message. The sweeper virus that corrupted Mother's data relevant to that part of his work. He'd left nothing behind.

He had been sure of it.

Until today, anyway. Today, Watari was hardly sure of anything sans his own name; and even that could have been questioned, come to think of it.

He shivered; whether from the cold, or dread that swarmed his thoughts, he didn't care to guess. Rubbing his arms, he shifted his weight until he was on his knees again. Slowly he stood up, keeping his eyes closed until his head ceased to spin.

Back on his feet, he shrugged as he looked around. Several hours ago, the lab had looked the same. But it had not been real; just an illusionary imitation compiled from his memories of it. Just like the Castle of Candles. Like the office. Like Tatsumi.

_Tatsumi_.

He tried to decide whether he, too, could have been only a creation of his own mind. If he was correct – but _how?_ he couldn't stop himself from asking – the simulation had gathered facts, but it interpreted his conclusions as well. Emotions, even, if only to an extent. The morning, when he and Tatsumi fought; he would have expected that. Tatsumi's concern; he craved it. He'd never thought to admit it, but it felt so good to know that Tatsumi cared. But the final trick – he felt as though it had only ended a few minutes before – it had been aimed straight at his heart, where it hurt the most. And Watari deemed himself far from masochistic, even if the constant lack of sleep and lab incidents argued otherwise. He wouldn't have brought that upon himself. He knew that beyond any doubt.

The other illusions had solidified his most personal sentiments towards those people, he realized, now that he took a moment to analyze it with a clearer mind. Akane... His former assistant's demise hadn't been his fault. She had stolen the access codes to help him on her own whim. It had been her choice. Logically, Watari knew he couldn't have stopped her. But some part of his heart never failed to point out that if he had only spoken to her, just once, before he left, he could have told her to stay out of it. That he didn't need help. That she should have stayed put, then everything would have been all right.

But he hadn't, and that was only one thing on a long list of what he should have done. He had been relentless in his pursuits for those five years, and he had driven those people to extremes along with him. Back then, only that had mattered. Too much had he cared about Mother, too little about the people involved. Too little. And he saw it far too late.

Tatsumi; Watari carried no guilt in regards to him. None at all, he could admit, and it bore no traces of a lie. Some kind of affection, perhaps something deeper, but no guilt was there. Real or not, the all too recent memories burned painfully fresh in his mind. In the end, a good part of the past hours had been just how Tatsumi figured in Watari's mind. The illusion had given him back the ripe fruit of the years he'd been watching that man.

But in the Castle, the fine line between reality and dream had blurred and disappeared, erasing all remaining tangible barriers between them. Tatsumi and Enma. Some combination, that; one a perfect antithesis of the other. But he had never seen Enma DaiOh in such way as he'd appeared in there. He'd never thought of him that way. He couldn't begin to guess how, but the god had been anything but illusionary.

"I guess they haven't been wasting time," he said with a sharp edge to each word. "But I destroyed it." For what had to be the tenth time at least, he went over it and back to the beginning. His mind refused to wrap itself around the idea that he could have made such a grievous mistake. It was impossible.

"Impossible," he repeated. And his blood went cold as he realized the only plausible explanation of that. No, he thought. _Please, no._

"Watari."

He jumped at the voice behind him and whirled, holding his breath. At the sight of the man in doorway he fell motionless, amber eyes narrowed in a close study of the slightly blurred, older face. A familiar face. He let out a deep sigh.

Konoe shook his head. "I don't think you can keep running away anymore."

Watari went rigid. _Who else was behind this_? he thought frantically. He pushed a trembling hand through his hair, never letting his eyes leave the chief's face. Who else couldn't be trusted? Even here...

That momentary unease bordering on panic must have shown, because Konoe reached out his hand, an open palm up like an invitation and a plea for trust. "Relax," he said in a quiet, calming voice. "I'm not your enemy."

Try as he might, Watari couldn't bring himself to believe it that easily. Trust was somewhat overrated; the conclusion he had drawn from experience over two decades ago had never really changed. And the past several hours had proved him right in a number of ways.

"How did you get in?" he asked suspiciously.

Konoe seemed to ponder something; he took a moment to look at him, closely now. He stayed in place by the door, calm in his waiting to be invited inside. There was something in his face Watari caught out of the corner of his eye as he glanced past him, considering his chances to escape; something that told him he shouldn't fight just yet.

"You're not losing your mind," the chief said at last.

Watari raised an eyebrow.

"The door was locked."

_I sure hope it was_, he thought. Then again, for all he knew, Konoe could have just tossed him an easy lie with a straight face, and he had every right to suspect that, right now, he could not have differentiated it from the truth if his existence depended on it. Which it might have, all things considered.

"Then how?" he asked.

"You tell me," Konoe said. He reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. Watari almost jumped; he took a small half-step back and watched the chief pull out a folded piece of paper, unfazed by the response that caused.

"May I?" he asked, and Watari at first didn't see what Konoe had in mind. But as he inclined his head and then looked up again, locking his eyes on Watari's in a look that held no challenge at all, he understood.

He nodded, one hand sliding behind him to grasp the edge of a cabinet. He leaned back, watching.

Konoe moved slowly as he closed the distance between then. He stopped three steps away and reached out the hand that held the paper.

You know what you're doing, Watari mused. Careful not to corner him or otherwise threaten with too much proximity, the chief waited until Watari took the sheet from his hand.

Realizing he'd have a nightmare reading the small print without his glasses, Watari wiped the slight flush of embarrassment from his face. Somehow, at such a time in particular, showing a weak side of his already uprooted image was a bit too much for any measure of comfort. But he swallowed it down, and frowned.

He had not really known what to expect, but what he was looking at through squinted eyes took him by surprise. An e-mail?

"It was in my mailbox this morning," Konoe explained. He folded his arms across his chest. "I thought it was a mistake, or perhaps a joke, until Tatsumi came in to tell me about your--"

"There's no sender," Watari cut in, all but heedless of Konoe's last words as he murmured under his breath. Alerted to a new puzzle, his mind was already racing along any possible explanations he could think of. "Do you know who sent it?"

The chief shrugged. "I was hoping you would tell me."

"I could..." Watari paused, hesitating. He didn't take long to make up his mind. If Konoe knew more than he let in on, it was no use to play coy, anyway. "I could trace back its route, check where it came from," he said. He met Konoe's eyes, cursing the lack of his glasses all over again. "I'll have to stop by my place first, though." He gave him a half-smile.

The chief returned it. "Will you be fine on your own?" he asked.

It was Watari's turn to shrug. "Of course."

"All right, then," Konoe agreed with a nod. "I'll be in my office."

When he left, Watari stared at the door for a longer while, gathering his thoughts. Then he glanced at the printout again.

There was his name in the header, and a code which he suspected hadn't told Konoe anything meaningful. It had nothing to do with this department; the twenty four alphanumerical figures that identified him as the person he had ceased to be twenty five years before.

The generic access code to his lab followed in the next line, and was described as such. Watari frowned. That code was scheduled for automatic change every fortnight; something he'd grown used to doing years ago and never bothered to let the habit die. He had always believed that there was no such thing as too much security, anyway. And so, he was the only one who knew it. By all agreements, the lab was exclusively his, as long as he remained employed. Save by his invitation and approval, nobody had any business here.

He couldn't remember any such occurrence in the past weeks. Whoever had sent the message, had far higher clearance than anyone in the Shokan Division had the right to hold.

That left Enma, who needed no clearance to access anything that Mother controlled, much to Watari's grief. But that made no sense; he couldn't muster any sort of reason the god, of all people, could have had to send a message such as this. If only because of the last line, where one word was spelled out in bold uppercase.

Emergency.

Watari rubbed the back of his head, displeased at the confusion that settled in his mind. The tone of the message was... nonexistent, really, he decided at he looked at it one more time. Whoever had sent it seemed to have been in a hurry. It read almost like one of those automatically generated messages that any mailer script could--

"No way," he muttered under his breath.

Impatient to confirm his newest suspicion, Watari grumbled as he realized that it would have to wait. Konoe was expecting him, and he resolved not to make the situation even worse by not keeping the promise he had given and disappearing altogether. Yet dire as the circumstances had become, he had begun to feel the tingling of agitation just underneath his skin. The pieces of the grand puzzle had moved. If they fell into place the way he thought they might, Watari knew he would be lost between regret and something very much like excitement again.

He had always thought that when it came to that, he would hesitate much more than this. But his instincts had never forgotten the thrill of the chase; the passion and the excitement of moving the pieces across the board until victory came within reach. That drive for accomplishment had been his doom, once.

It had not tamed him much.

"Am I making the same mistake again?" he asked the silence around him with a small, wistful smile.

The one to answer him was the owl. 003 flapped her wings, hooting indignantly as she circled around his head.

"Yes, it could be a catch," he said, searching around for a spare change of clothes. "It probably is, though at this point, it could be either way. The conclusion?" he grinned. "All I can do is find out." He tugged a warm pullover over his head, on top of the shirt he was already wearing. "Right?"

-

The sense of being back on something resembling the right track, of getting somewhere at last, numbed the fear down to a bearable point. He was glad; his mind refused to let go of the multiplying questions he could not possibly answer just yet, but his body had picked up on the anticipation and his blood was running faster again. It gave him strength, and a good drive was what he needed to go through it with his head high enough.

A part of his mind committed to analyzing the probability of his theory regarding Konoe's mysterious e-mail, Watari forced the remaining issues into the farthest corner of his thoughts. It didn't take long for him to return to his apartment. But his keys had gotten lost somewhere in the chaos of the past day, so Watari shifted to his spirit form even before he made his way inside the apartment building.

Something at the edge of his consciousness raised his suspicions; yet not nearly soon enough. The instant he materialized in his living room, he froze.

Suit jacket gone, the sleeves of his blue dress shirt rolled up, Tatsumi was kneeling down with a piece of cloth in his hand.

Scrubbing dark, bloody stains off the floor.

Watari's heart sank. "Tatsumi?"

The Shadow Master looked up, pausing his work only for a moment. "Watari-san," he said gently, "I hope you'll forgive my intrusion, but I did not suppose allowing you to come back to this mayhem was a good idea."

Watari resisted the urge to rub his eyes; he could hardly believe the sight in font of him. Tatsumi Seiichirou. Cleaning up his mess.

"Please, don't," he said. He caught his lower lip between his teeth and watched that man, his partner on an occasion or two, ignore him as he continued his monotonous task. "Tatsumi, you don't have to do this." This is embarrassing, he thought. You've seen and done enough already. "I appreciate your help, but you--"

"I want to help," Tatsumi interrupted, not looking up; his eyes followed his hands along the up-and-down path upon the floor. He was scrubbing harder now, and the resolve in his words sounded strangely desperate in Watari's ears.

"Tatsumi," he said again. He crossed the room and stood by the Shadow Master's side. It felt so strange, looking down at that man. "Please, stop it," he repeated, a sharper edge around his voice. "I can do this myself."

"I'm sure you do," Tatsumi spoke through gritted teeth now and Watari knew that desperation was real, for his voice was breaking, the words ragged around the edges. "But I insist. There's nothing else I can do, so let me at least--"

"Tatsumi!"

The Shadow Master's hand froze in midair. He looked up.

Through blurry eyes, Watari could not decipher the expression on his face. But something sparkled around the dark depth of his aura that felt so frighteningly uncharacteristic, so unlike the man he'd used to see. The seconds stretched and Watari only stared.

There was silence, long and brittle, and then Tatsumi broke it with a deep, shuddering sigh.

Watari's throat felt dry as he tried to decide what to do. In the end, he placed a gentle hand on Tatsumi's shoulder. He knelt down next to him, leaning in close until the Shadow Master's pale face came into focus. Now he could see that tired, almost haunted look in his eyes. He smiled.

"Long day?"

Tatsumi cleared his throat. He looked away. "I found your glasses." He rose to his feet. "They're slightly out of shape, but--"

He broke off as Watari caught his hand.

"--they're not broken," he finished, his voice whisper soft.

Tatsumi was looking past him, Watari realized, avoiding his gaze. He was staring into those eyes, the blue depth dim and shallow, dark circles hanging around the shadow of his lashes brushing as far as his cheekbones. A sign of distress, he knew. He had seen it before. He squeezed Tatsumi's hand, lightly, just enough to draw his attention back to himself.

The leaden silence weighed on his mind. When Tatsumi met his eyes, it was a reluctant glance, one that held an unspoken question painted with a glistening mist over his irises.

And Watari all but heard that question; he understood the hesitancy dancing at the edges of his silence. He pulled himself up, never letting go of Tatsumi's hand.

"Tatsumi," he started as they stood face to face. "Did Bon tell you what he'd seen?"

The Shadow Master nodded, once more averting his gaze. He made a half-hearted attempt at freeing his hand from Watari's grasp, but the scientist held it tight.

He sighed. "It had absolutely nothing to do with _you_," he said firmly. Not completely true, but close enough.

Tatsumi cast him a dark, dubious look. He kept his silence; it hung heavily between them, thickening the already stuffy air. The new light bulb in the lamp above them flickered.

"It was _not real_," Watari stressed the words to reinforce his point; convincing himself as well as Tatsumi, it seemed. Funny, he thought, how the man could know yet fail to accept that fact. "_You _were not there. It was not your fault. Hear me?"

He felt Tatsumi shiver and had to suppress a shrug of his own.

"Loud and clear," Tatsumi said at last, his voice back to its usual matter-of-fact tone. "But that explains little. Watari, what is this all about? Why is Enma DaiOh after you?"

His stomach flipped backwards and a cold shiver ran down his back, but Watari held up the Shadow Master's gaze. He had seen that coming; he had been expecting that very question to come anytime for the past day. But when it came – and it still echoed in his mind – neither diversion from the subject he had made up before seemed suitable enough.

"It's a long story," he said.

The look on Tatsumi's face was stern. But not angry, Watari noticed with a hint of relief. He remembered the past day all too well; he could almost see the illusionary scene from the morning in his mind's eye. He couldn't let the situation slip out of his hands that way, not this time that he had another chance, and he could do it right. The memory of the consequences of brushing Tatsumi off burned him still; the anger, and that rough desperation that had all but shaken them both out of control.

"That's fine," Tatsumi said. "I have the whole night."

"But I don't," Watari said carefully. He let go of Tatsumi's hand. "Chief Konoe is waiting for me in the office now as we speak. I'm sorry, Tatsumi, but that comes first."

"Right now?" Disbelief laced the question and Tatsumi's gaze mirrored it with a glint of a warning in his sapphire eyes. "Watari, it's the middle of the night."

Can't blame you, Watari thought sadly to himself. He knew he would have a hard time believing himself, too. "I know," he said levelly. "But this is important. I might actually find out what is really going on here." He cast a glance around the room; a blurry disarray in the harsh light spilling from the ceiling. He looked at Tatsumi again, seriousness etched onto his features.

"If I'm right, everything will make more sense than it does right now, and I'll explain it to you in the morning," he said. "Okay? Tatsumi?"

The Shadow Master bowed his head. He let his eyes slide shut with a deep sigh. Then he pushed his glasses up his nose with two fingertips and, without a word, he walked up to the low table by the couch. He reached down, picking up a small item and turned to face Watari again.

"I hope you know what you're doing," he said slowly.

Tough call, Watari thought to himself. He joined the other man as Tatsumi reached out his hand, holding Watari's glasses on his open palm.

"Just tell me one thing." He didn't release his hold on the spectacles as the scientist tried to retrieve them.

Watari's heart skipped a beat.

His eyes sweeping a quick look around the room, Tatsumi gestured around himself with his other hand. "Was this Enma's doing?"

Watari bit his lip. He pulled his eyes off his partner and looked away, all but giving in to the urge to turn from him altogether. At the brink of another choice that made him flinch, he thought back to the god's words; the sting of accusation in the way Enma had reminded him he'd been living a grand lie. He remembered. It still hurt.

He gave a small nod. "Yes."

The shadows that covered the length of the room twitched; they curled uneasily around their master's hand, shifting slowly, awaiting commands. Tatsumi curled his fingers into fists.

Watari swallowed thickly. "No, Tatsumi," he said slowly. He reached out a hesitant hand and rested it lightly on his partner's shoulder. "It's all right. Please, stay out of this." I've heard this before, he thought bitterly, ignoring the sudden tightness in his chest. That hollow sound of the door shutting behind the Shadow Master was still present and fresh in his mind; illusion or otherwise.

"He had no right." Tatsumi's eyes flashed a dangerous look from beneath the cover of his lashes. The shadows swirled in their silent impatience.

"Actually, he did," Watari said pointedly. He regretted it in the same instant. The shocked, quizzical look it earned him made him bite his tongue. "I do owe you an explanation," he admitted, his mind made up.

If Enma had succeeded at anything at all, it was at showing him he had gone on long enough veiled in a cloak of deceit and too many unspoken words that should long since have been said.

"Let me confirm a few suspicions I have; I've got some mess to take care of first. Then we'll talk." He met Tatsumi's eyes. "I promise."

He turned around and started towards the door. It warmed him up, the way Tatsumi cared. It was not just an illusion, he mused. It was there. Even if that man's concern disguised as many things, it showed nonetheless.

He put on his glasses, blinking a few times as his surroundings finally came into full focus. He heard Tatsumi behind him; the Shadow Master sighed, and then he was moving, and Watari froze as something feather-light brushed against his cheek.

A shadow.

He smiled, briefly closing his eyes.

"Be careful," he heard behind him.

"You bet."

--

At two in the morning, even his breath seemed to echo softly in the empty halls of the Ministry building. Watari took his time on his way to the place where he had been working for the past twenty five years, with nothing but the sound of his footsteps to keep him company. He remembered that night when he had walked like that – only back then, he had been heading out, and there had been anything but silence surrounding him as he had wrapped up five years worth of his afterlife.

He had been full of regret, then; and the bitter afterthoughts had stayed with him all throughout the years. Even though he had not dwelt on them, he had never forgotten. And just a few hours ago, he had been reminded that nothing in the universe could simply disappear; the history had written itself on the pages of his memory with a permanent ink that would never come off.

He had been at the new beginning's door, that day; it seemed so long ago. Next time he had returned, he had dropped the title of the Head Researcher of the Five Generals, had left that old self of his behind. He had walked in as a Shinigami, and he had sworn to himself never to let his ambition push him past the point of no return again.

But now, the more he thought about it, the more pieces of the puzzle fell into place, and he had begun to realize that he had likely never escaped those intricately woven nets. Every sign around him, every detail that had ever seemed out of place slowly started to make sense. He had been tricked, then. He hadn't escaped at all.

He hadn't even done what he'd always thought he had. The game set into motion thirty years before, on the day he had accepted Enma DaiOh's deal, had never come to an end. It had merely slowed down until he felt safe enough to believe it had been over. Now it was picking up its pace again.

He had decided he would give away only as much information as he deemed necessary. But he would not lie. Not this time.

Konoe's face bore a solemn look; he seemed weary, his back slightly hunched. He sat at his desk, watching Watari with strangely soft eyes as the scientist slipped quietly around the door frame, into his office, and greetings had been exchanged.

"I almost didn't make it," he said lightly with a small grin. He felt tired himself, but the room had seemed gloomy enough. "I don't think Tatsumi believed me when I said I'm going back here again."

"I told him to leave," Konoe said, moving away to let Watari sit in his desk chair so he could do his work.

Watari nodded. "Tsuzuki and Bon?"

"Home, I hope." Konoe's lips curled up in a small smile. "I have to wonder if anyone will make it to the office on time tomorrow... today," he corrected, glancing at his watch.

Watari licked his lips, idly tapping his fingers against the side of the keyboard. "I apologize. I made quite a mess."

Konoe drew a deep breath "It was bound to happen," he said.

Surprised, Watari looked up. His eyes narrowed; his palms went slightly damp. He hadn't been seeing things, after all, he thought. "You knew?"

The chief inclined his head. "So I did."

"I'm not even going to ask since when and from whom," Watari said, shrugging. Another puzzle solved. A bitter satisfaction, that.

"He still finds you more than valuable. And he will stop at nothing to get what he wants."

Watari pursed his lips. He nodded thoughtfully. "I know."

All of a sudden he knew he had been right. The message was real, though Konoe probably didn't need him to figure it out. He should have guessed. But it had been invitation enough to make sure he would come now, when they could talk with no curious ears and eyes around.

"Watari," the chief leaned heavily against the desk, directly in front of him, and released a deep, heavy breath. "If he requests your transfer, I won't be able to stop him."

"I wouldn't ask you to do that even if you could," he answered at length. Tapping at the keys, he skimmed the data on the monitor with a small, enigmatic smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

"Out of curiosity," Konoe said, tilting his head half an inch. "Why not?"

"Because that's what he's expecting me to do. To drag everyone here down along with me. To bring him the royal flush between my teeth and go down with a bang so that he can prove his power."

Konoe winced. "That sounds familiar."

"He can hope," Watari said, stretching his arms above his head.

"You can't stop him." The chief leaned forward a little more and frowned.

"Probably not." Rising from the chair, Watari looked up to meet Konoe's eyes in a long stare. "But I can try."

He walked around the desk, passing by the older man who stood there, silent, slowly shaking his head.

"By the way," he said, turning in doorway before he stepped past the threshold. "The e-mail? It traces back to Mother."

The chief's eyebrows climbed into his hairline. "To Mother?"

"Yes." Watari grinned. He whirled on his way out the door, sweeping his hair over his shoulder. He glanced back and gave Konoe a curt nod. "Thank you, chief."

He left Konoe and closed the door behind him in somewhat higher spirits. But it left him in wonderment; had he let his guard down so much that he had missed something obvious, something important about his chief? Or had Konoe really been discreet enough never to have given any sort of indication that he knew so much about who Watari had once been. True, he had suspected the man could have been told who it was that he had hired to work in his department, but it had not been something he liked going back to, and he refused to ponder it further at that time. And later on, he had done all he could to just be who he wanted to be; and it had worked. He had been happy. Relatively, anyway.

In his mind something resembling a plan had slowly begun to take shape. He still pushed away the idea of giving Enma what he had been asked to give, as far into the shadowy recess of his thoughts as he could. But now that he had found his position on the chessboard, it no longer made him sick with dread. He could find a way; he had to believe it. He had no other choice.

He thought back to all those years he had spent here, to all the people he had been working with. He had watched them come and go; some never had enough, some had moved on. Some were still missed; many nameless others had left a ghostly trace of their souls between the walls of this place. He wondered briefly who would come after him, if it came to that.

"You've turned sneaking out at night into a fine art."

A low, female voice rang somewhere ahead of him, the sound afloat on the dusty darkness of the hall around the corner. Watari jumped, instinctively reaching out for something to grasp. That voice; it could not be – hearing it now, in this place, after so many years; he felt like something had just hit him hard upside the head.

He looked around, trying to see through the dark but there seemed to have been no one there. He shivered.

"I can't believe you've forgotten."

I haven't, he thought frantically. His heart pounded furiously in his chest; he moved alongside the wall towards the corner's edge, curiosity mingled with dread spinning in his head.

He slipped around the corner, carefully, scanning the twilight around him with wide open eyes.

"And do you have the nerve to look me in the eye?"

She was there, right before him, just like he remembered her. Hands in the pockets of her lab coat, she regarded him with a contemptuous stare.

"Tategami?" he whispered, shaking his head, heavy under a wave of disbelief. Impossible. She was dead. _Gone._ Gone, for a long time now.

"And whose fault it was?" she asked, as if reading the thoughts that rushed through his mind. "You were so sure it would work," she went on, slow steps taking her inches away from him. "We would reach our final goal. It was brilliant, you said. Our lives would be complete."

Watari screwed his eyes shut. He had to force himself to look at her again. _Gone_. Twenty five years, and counting. She couldn't be real. Impossible, he was telling himself in his thoughts over and over again. And the illusion... it was gone, too. Or was it? _Stop it, _he scorned himself. _Snap out of it, _now

"Yes," she said in a singsong voice, a sickly sweet veil of flavor beneath a lash of venom washing over her words. "There it is, that question. It keeps surfacing, doesn't it?"

Watari held his breath, edging away as he felt her hand land squarely upon his chest, his own heart beating against her palm. He shuddered.

"How do you know," she whispered, "if any of this is real?"


	8. Chapter Seven

Thank you to everyone who reviewed; your feedback means a lot to me. You're awesome, and I'm glad you're still with me. :) Also big thanks to the people who verified the plausibility of my theories explained in this chapter: **Lothlorien1**, **Alura**, and my students.

The music:  
Dido - _Here With Me_  
X TV OST - _Sadame (piano version)_  
Seether - _The Gift_  
Sarah McLachlan - _Full of Grace _

Warning: Depressing. No, really.

* * *

- 

**Against the Wind**  
Chapter Seven

-

"How can you distinguish reality from illusion? You can't tell the difference, can you?"

Backed against the wall, Watari shuddered. _Not this time, _he thought, and he turned his focus inwards, shutting out the sound, ignoring the pressure of that hand upon his chest.

"Poor, poor Yutaka," she intoned, swinging to the rhythm of her own voice. "So lost. Just like when you died."

Lost? Watari's inner voice laughed. _Lost_ didn't cut it. But suddenly it didn't matter; when he found himself at another point of no return – one too many, he had lost the track of those – he decided it was time to stop fighting and let the current take him home.

Wherever _that_ was.

He leaned back his head and closed his eyes. Lips slightly parted, he let out a deep, calming sigh. His head rolled to the side until his cheek touched the cool surface of the wall. He reached for his glasses, sweeping them out of the way, and waited. For what... it no longer mattered, either. She was still talking, somewhere there; he could hear her, but he no longer distinguished the words. They melted into a background noise around the corners of his mind, and he found himself not caring at all.

Strange kind of relief, that.

It could have been minutes, or hours – his perception of time had warped - but in the end, he heard himself laugh. Softly at first; the sound rose from the bottom of his chest, vibrant, bright yet broken. Such a perfect contradiction, he caught the fleeting thought before it disappeared, and a perfect end to a useless fight.

So he laughed, the echo like a chorus to his own voice that rang across the empty halls. And the building could have shuddered and collapsed, for all he cared; it would just bury him under thirty years of bittersweet dreams.

When he opened his eyes again, Tategami was gone – she, or an illusion, or perhaps a memory of her that had haunted him all along. She didn't make it, they had told him back then, and that painful failure had gone on his account. Mother had gone mad, he remembered someone say; completely out of control, shutting everything down at the moment of their simultaneous connection. On his part, Watari remembered fear, that instant he had gone in, and the feeling of being violated, torn apart. The last thing he remembered was his own shattering scream.

Yet no matter how many times he had gone over the program afterwards, often all throughout the years, he could not find the fault. There had been nothing wrong. It should have worked.

He looked around, his eyes tracing the long shadows; jet black against the dark, gloomy gray. He could swear something around him whispered, is this real? Time and again, like an afterthought vocalized by a reluctant memory that clung to his mind like a wet shirt. Scattered pieces of memories flashed before his eyes, and he found himself asking each and every one of them – did it happen? as though there he would find an answer convincing enough to believe it. But he knew he had crossed the threshold beyond which he was too numb to register the need to verify any of this. To find a way to do that; any way, anything to save his sanity from what now seemed like an inevitable fall. In all perfect honesty of the heart, he could no longer tell – suddenly he realized that for all he knew, everything since the beginning could have been unreal. Perhaps he had never woken, twenty five years before. Perhaps all the time it had been a dream. Who could tell him now whether reality was indeed what it appeared to be? Who had what it took to make him believe it?

When he could not trust himself, he knew, he could not trust anyone else, either.

In this somber place, the pull of gravity seemed to have steadily grown stronger. He'd had a resolve, once; it used to burn bright before him, a beacon that showed him the way. And when that flame had gone out and he began to walk, only because he could not think of anything else to do, absently running his fingers along the wall, he understood. He had not underestimated Enma by far; not enough to deem it a grievous mistake. But he had overestimated his own resilience, and now it was slipping away; dissolving into nothingness, melting into silence along the sound of his footfalls against the floor.

This should have been the moment when he realized that everything Enma had done had been just a ploy; a way to get him back, a game, one he could just shrug off as he had done before and move on. He wished he could have said it had not worked. But it had. And the aftermath of the play that had yet to see its true beginning was already pushing him down the slippery slope.

He made his way outside and the first lungful of the crisp night air made him wonder how possibly perfect illusion could be. He knelt down at the bottom of the wide stairs and touched the dirt, and he wondered if that was how reality felt between his fingertips. The salt on the tip of his tongue as he ran it along his lips – was it real, or just a memory? And he found no way to tell; there was no tangible anchor left to go back to and gain a clear perspective again.

He sat heavily on the stony steps and let his head drop into his hands. The chilly wind tugged at his hair, whispering; it had been so long since he got used to the perpetual cold. His own breath felt warm on his palms; a strange contradiction, and he felt like giggling, the sound caught quickly behind his hand. I thought you needed me, he mused, and for a second he was not sure whether he had said that aloud. I thought you wanted me sane.

"Maybe that doesn't even matter to you. Or to me," he said quietly, tiredly.

The night seemed heavy, or perhaps it was just his head that felt that way. He realized that only a couple of hours must have passed, but it felt like days, weeks, months, time devoid of meaning in his mind – as though he had been running up the hill all his life and afterwards, unable to stop or turn away and leave.

"Fine," he said at last and stood. "Have it your way."

His voice grew louder now and he turned to face the building, head tilted back, his narrowed eyes staring the quarters up and down. "You hear me? You win!" he shouted. It brought a strange, exhilarating release, hearing his own voice shooting through the dark.

Then he walked away, slowly, dragging his feet, stifling choked laughter. If there was no other way, he would do it like that. Maybe all it amounted to was suicide. The second death. Maybe slavery was a better way to put it. Maybe he was giving up, maybe he wasn't – but he couldn't deny that Enma had a point. He thought back to the words they had exchanged before. You will finish what you started, he had said. Nobody in their right mind opposed Enma DaiOh.

Then again, Watari was not sure he was still in his right mind, himself.

He stopped under a street lamp and rolled up one sleeve. The bruises around his wrist still gave his skin a faint, fading sickly shade. Intriguing, that, he thought; his body should have healed a long time ago. Another trick, or perhaps just an illusion. Another way to force him into a cage. Illusion had locked it, he knew; he was looking at the world around him from behind the bars. Leave it to a god to defeat him with a weapon he had invented himself.

He wandered aimlessly under the eternal sakura trees until the night began to wane. He had wanted to go somewhere, to do something, but he failed to muster anything resembling a sense of purpose anymore. His purpose lay elsewhere, deep underground in the building far behind him. It was calling him, beckoning, teasing and tempting with a promise of relief.

But that had to wait. He still had something to do.

-

Watari returned to EnmaCho before sunrise. He wanted to make sure nobody had come to work yet as he cleaned out his desk. He felt bad about disappearing on his longtime friends without so much as a goodbye. But he knew they would have questions; too many of them, and his truthful answers would bring no good to anyone at all. He didn't trust himself to tell a convincing lie; it felt even worse, anyway. Disappointing them hurt, but better safe than sorry, he thought – in regards to them more than to himself. If he could not fall any further down, he would at least make sure nobody followed suit.

He cleaned up his lab and locked it, having gathered only the most necessary of his belongings. He would drop them in his apartment later, before he went to wrap up the last thing on the list of his errands for the day. But as the lock clicked and he realized he would not come back tomorrow to open that door again, a sudden sorrow filled him to the bottom of his heart.

He had done it before. That memory still burned fresh in his mind. He had left everything behind once already, in this world, this... afterlife. Only that time, quarter of a century ago, his regret was not for the people he had left in his wake. Today, it was so completely different. This was like a family, or as close to one as he could get.

And he was leaving again.

He left the Ministry building a few minutes before eight o'clock, careful not to run into Tatsumi, in case the man decided to start his workday early, as he often did. Watari remembered the promise he'd given the night before; it would not let him forget with the aid of a lump in his throat that grew larger each time he thought about it. But before that he needed time to gather his thoughts, to put everything in order in his mind, so that when the time came, he would say exactly what he had to say. No more, no less.

With a few hours left until the evening, Watari spent most of the day strolling down the streets, recalling past events and the people he had met over the past twenty five years. He thought back to the few difficult cases he'd had, the Shinigami that were no longer there, everything that had changed. Meifu might have been the land of the dead, but life still somehow went on at its usual pace. So he wandered to the places he had not visited in ages, refreshing the memories, focusing on all the positive things he could think of. He offered a smile to those who passed him by, and they smiled back, like they would on any other day.

And everything would have seemed just like always, if not for the stubborn sting of doubt interlaced with his thoughts. You can't tell, his inner voice chimed on. Real, or not? But he drank in the warm sunshine anyway, and let it wash away the darkness of his thoughts. He inhaled as deeply as his lungs allowed, and savored the sweet scent of the sakura that lingered in the air. Even if one day he found out it had not been real, he told himself that it took away nothing of its beauty today.

The lack of sleep had slowly begun to catch up with him, but Watari resisted the need. He spent an hour reclining on a wooden bench in a garden under the shelter of a giant tree. He tried to rest, but his whirling thoughts kept him wide awake and his body tense. Food did not look appealing, either; his stomach, twisted into a tight knot, opposed the idea of eating rather violently.

His thoughts kept straying towards Tatsumi, and Watari eventually gave in. He had worked hard to rid himself of the icy chill, the residue of Enma's using the Shadow Master against him in the dirty fight for the upper hand. It was none of Tatsumi's fault, he knew, and even none of his own. Still, he caught himself wondering if the man he would soon speak with was as real as he wanted him to be. Doubt, he mused, was such an easily planted trap. It made such a powerful tool.

And all over again, try as he might, he found no way to tell. A desperate anger flickered at the edge of his mind. He could choose to let go, write it off as an illusion and do none of the things that could still be done. Or, he could go and hope he would not misjudge the situation again. A feeble hope, he thought sadly, but still worth a try.

Past eight o'clock, the lights in the Shadow Master's house blinked on and Watari rose from where he had been watching the windows. He suspected Tatsumi would be anywhere between angry and furious; he had not shown up at work without any sort of notice. But that no longer mattered. After tonight, he would not have much left to worry about at all.

He prepared himself for a small storm as he knocked on the door. He was not wrong.

"Watari-san!" Tatsumi's voice was stern as he appeared in doorway, carefully studying the scientist with critical eyes.

Watari caught that familiar, dangerous glint in them and froze. He held his breath.

"I hope you have a very good excuse for missing work today," Tatsumi said. "Feel free to start from that before you explain everything else."

Nodding slowly, Watari smiled. Tatsumi as he had always been. "That's why I'm here," he said. "I'm sorry for today. I had... important matters to attend to."

Tatsumi's guarded pose spoke of disapproval, yet there was a hint of concern as well. His words, though, carried the former best. "You're notorious for excuses much better than this," he said.

"No more excuses." Watari shook his head. "We need to talk."

Tatsumi sighed. "Indeed, we do. Come in," he said, gesturing for Watari to enter.

"Not here," he said quietly. He measured Tatsumi carefully from head to toe. "Grab your coat."

The Shadow Master's brow furrowed. "Where are we going?"

"Chijou." Smiling, Watari pointed his thumb up.

Tatsumi cocked his head, unconvinced. "What for?"

"You'll see."

-

The city of Tokyo shone brightly with millions of sparkling lights beneath them; the commotion bursting with color, that never-ending pounding of life, spun onwards into a rush by the evening hour. Watari had caught Tatsumi's arm in midair as they had materialized in the world of the living. For a short moment, he ignored the questioning looks and the attempts at outrage on the Shadow Master's part. He took in the sight spreading beneath and all around him. Breathed in the polluted city air, and even that seemed beautiful to him right then. If it were to be his last chance to experience it like that, he decided he would make the most of it.

Tatsumi was beautiful, too, in flight; gracefully shifting in the free air by his side. Even his apparent impatience didn't bother him; it was a part of Tatsumi, he had learned a long time ago, and now he appreciated it all the more. He wanted to remember that man, exactly like this. That lingering scent that was uniquely his; all of Tatsumi's usual ways, that look on his face, the endless blue of his eyes and his hair ruffled by the wind. The long coat fluttering around him, much like his own, and the glasses sliding down his nose. The way those soft, dark strands fell lightly over his eyes. A sight well worth remembering, that.

Watari caught himself wishing he could touch him, longing for a chance to let his hands carry the memory as well, wherever he would go from there.

"Watari-san?" Tatsumi moved smoothly to his side and regarded him with a quizzical look. "Why are we here?"

Here goes nothing, Watari mused, and he braced himself for everything he had come here to say. "Meifu has eyes and ears in places you would never imagine, Tatsumi," he said, his voice gravely serious. "And what I'm about to tell you had better stay between you and me."

"I'm listening," Tatsumi agreed with a small nod.

Watari gave his head a light shake. "You're not taking me as seriously as you should be. Believe me, I've never been more serious than I am right now. You'll have to take my word for it, but you do _not _want to face the consequences of Enma's finding out that you're in on this."

The god's name wiped the remnants of doubt from the Shadow Master's face. "I understand." He nodded again.

Watari took a deep breath and let his eyes briefly slide shut. The wind whined around him, as if channeling his own overwhelming unease. Yet, as he spoke, it carried his voice loud and clear.

"This place, and all the others – Meifu, Gensoukai, wherever you go – they all have something in common. Look around you," he said, pulling Tatsumi a short way down towards the city. "Wherever you turn, you'll find an energy which is a constituent present in every single element of this world. And it's the same everywhere else, as well. Everything; metaphysical, living, inanimate, take your pick – if it exists within the borders of the universe, and if it were to disintegrate into the most basic elements, in the end what you're left with is energy itself. It's an integral part of the makeup of each plane, like a link that is holding it all together."

There was an expression of focus on Tatsumi's face, and he nodded. Watari suspected he had to wonder what that had to do with anything, but the Shadow Master kept his silence.

"If you had a chance to take such a close look, you would see that those links are everywhere. Every organism, every object, every cell and particle and even every thought ever produced is intertwined with the world it exists in. The flow of energy within a plane, and between the parallel planes is constant, uninterrupted by anything, except a purposefully calibrated spell. But then again, those carry energy as well, so eventually it would be released into the circulation anyway. It ignores boundaries, any and all of the limitations of the physical world. There's no beginning or end or any sort of limit to this; it's been the primary constituent of everything in the world since day one, and it will likely be so after everything else is gone. You could say it's eternal, though that's scientifically impossible to prove."

"That sounds interesting," Tatsumi said carefully, but his eyebrows drew slightly together in a frown. "But I don't see what that has to do with Enma DaiOh... or you."

"Bear with me, Tatsumi, I'm getting there." Watari shrugged. "What you have to understand about this is that this energy is like a net that connects everything together. But the _most _important thing is that it also serves as a data carrier of limitless capacity."

Tatsumi drew back a little, surprised. "Data carrier?" he asked suspiciously.

"Yes." Watari rubbed his arms, pulling his coat tighter around himself against the cold wind. "It carries information about everything it has ever touched, about everything it has ever been a part of. It _remembers _it, if you will. You know how nothing in the universe disappears without a trace? Think of it as of a kind of linking lines; eternal, limitless, connecting every element of every world and then all the worlds together, all of it into one enormous universe. And the memory of _everything _that has _ever _occurred keeps circulating everywhere. All the time."

He paused, took a deep breath. Tatsumi's eyes were fixed upon him, a light frown still creasing his forehead as though he had frozen in time and space. A dark star of shadow against the velvet black.

"You have to realize the enormity of this," Watari continued after another deep breath. "We're talking every event, every memory, every thought, even the extremely strong emotions, to an extent. What the first human being was like, the first god, the first death, all the history of the universe remembered, _stored_, in a limitless network of links. Here, in Chijou. In Meifu. Everywhere you go, you'll find it. And the options that offers are immeasurable. A possibility to explore things that no longer exist and, in turn, a chance to recreate them. A way to learn what nobody remembers anymore, all the things that have never been documented anywhere. It's there. In this city, this plane; in us, even. Inside us and all around us."

Tatsumi shook his head. "But that is only theory, isn't it?"

"We'll get to that." Watari pursed his lips. "Now think about this: all this information exists. What would happen if someone gained unlimited access to it?"

Tatsumi's eyes grew large as understanding slowly dawned upon him. "Unlimited access? To every piece of information that has ever existed on this plane?"

"Not just this one, Tatsumi." Watari pointed down at the city beneath them, then drew a full circle around himself with his hand. "_All _of them."

"Information is power," Tatsumi whispered. His face had paled a little. "Unlimited information equals unlimited power." For a moment he fell silent, then he shook his head. "But it's only a theory. How would one go about gathering that kind of data? It's impossible."

Watari shrugged. "That's what you think."

"You're not trying to say there is a technology capable of that?"

Watari moved closer, until he and Tatsumi were face to face; floating yet motionless against the starlit sky. "That is precisely what I'm saying."

"You can't be serious." The Shadow Master narrowed his eyes. "Where?"

Watari held up that ice-blue stare, unblinking, though his heart was pounding. "In Meifu."

"What?"

"The Mother computer." Watari looked away. That glimpse of shock on Tatsumi's face was more than enough to cut his heart open in many unbidden ways. "Which happens to be in Enma's exclusive possession. It's more than capable of capturing all that information, and I suspect it's doing so even right now as we speak."

Adjusting his glasses, Tatsumi let his hand linger there as he massaged the middle of his brow. "If I understood correctly, it means that everything, including this very conversation, can be captured."

Watari nodded. "Yes."

"But that means..." Tatsumi broke off. He looked up. "How do _you_ fit into all of this?"

Sighing, Watari ran his hand through his wind-tangled hair. "Mother might be the most sophisticated, the most advanced computer currently in existence, but on the basic level, it's still only a machine. The kind of data we're talking about is purely abstract to computers, even to one such as this. To process it, it needs an intermediary. A translator, if you will, which will transform the incoming signal into a language a computer system can understand."

"And Enma wants you to create it?"

Watari shook his head. Something in his heart cringed. But he had promised to carry this through, and he had come too far to back away now. "No." He lifted his head and met Tatsumi's gaze. "You're looking at it."

"The intermediary... between Mother and the rest of the world... is you?"

"Yes."

When Watari forced himself to look at Tatsumi again, he met a pair of eyes that watched him as though they had never seen him before. Past this point, he knew, the decision what to do with the information no longer belonged to him.

"But how?" Tatsumi managed at last, and the words seemed to have had difficulty passing through his constricted throat.

Watari tapped his temple with a finger. "Thanks to this," he said levelly, careful to show none of the apprehension that washed over him. "And something I was born with that makes a smart guy out of me."

The weak attempt at humor seemed lost on Tatsumi. "So Enma is forcing you to do this?" he asked.

Watari winced. "Not exactly." He crossed his arms over his chest and shuddered. "Let's go down, shall we?"

-

The streets were crowded, though not overly so, despite the early evening hour. Watari took in their surroundings, breathing deeply to calm down his nerves. It had gone better than he had expected, he had to admit; so far, anyway. At least Tatsumi did not make it any more difficult than it already was. Still, going back to all of this and putting it into words amounted to making it final; after this night, another part of his existence would end. How sad, he thought to himself, watching the bright, colorful lights around them. Shame.

"Thirty years ago, I had the misfortune of dying in a lab explosion," he started, glad that they were walking. It made it easier to contain himself. "Wasn't pretty, and you can imagine just how thrilled that left me. But when I got my second chance..." he paused, realizing in that instant how bitter his voice had become. "I didn't get assigned to the Shinigami work, like I thought I would. Instead, I got pulled into the Mother Project, which was sort of crawling by that time. It was created and overseen by The Five Generals."

Tatsumi avoided his gaze. "That's where you got that device?"

"Yes." Watari nodded. "It allowed me to connect to Mother and make the entire project happen. They had discovered a way to tap into the energy nets and pull the information out of them, but to process it they needed someone willing to act as a demodulating tool, of sorts. Someone capable of holding that tremendous amount of data constantly flowing in within their mind, so that the pre-implanted terminal could translate it into binary that Mother understood."

"And you did it."

Watari's mouth twitched; a small, wistful smile. "I did. By that time we were taking it one step at a time, mind you; it's an enormous overload, all that signal coming in and passing through you..." He shivered at the memory. "Amazing experience, that. But at that point, we're not talking information from the entire world; not yet, anyway. It was still quite far ahead of us. Slow work, mostly the analysis of everything they'd managed to collect over time. The goal was to create an environment in which the process of capturing and translating the data was instantaneous. For testing purposes, I developed a program... an interface, really, in which my parter and I could work on the synchronization and get used to the new conditions. It was a virtual reality of sorts, compiled from the data that had previously been collected in Meifu."

Out of the corner of his eye he watched Tatsumi's confusion dissolve in the understanding of his words. "And what happened yesterday was..."

"An illusionary mirror reflection of reality. Twenty five years ago, it was my workplace, so to speak. And it was a rat race, Tatsumi; the highest level kind." Watari swallowed thickly. He felt himself shiver. Tatsumi walked beside him, silent, nodding thoughtfully and only glancing sideways once in a while, as if hesitant to ask lest it be a wrong question.

"And it took five years, but eventually we got to the point where we were ready to go live. Test it in the real environment, that is." He shrugged. "Only something went wrong, and it didn't work."

Tatsumi half-turned and looked at him closely. "What happened?"

"I don't know." Watari shook his head. "What I _do_ know is that when I regained consciousness it was to find out that three months had gone by and my partner was gone, too."

Tategami's angry face flashed in his memory again, and her words continued to assault him with a dull echo inside his mind. _Whose fault it was?_

"And you never found out what had gone wrong?"

The Shadow Master's question pulled Watari out of his thoughts. "No. I wanted to, but I got cut off, and not long afterwards I left altogether." He took a deep breath. "See... The thing is... I cleaned up my mess before I left. The virtual interface and the crucial elements pertaining to my part of the Project were destroyed."

"Why?"

Watari pressed his lips tightly together. He stared ahead, looking but not really seeing the blurry lights in front of him. "Because they forgot to tell me that the ultimate purpose of Mother was to give Enma _continuous_ access to the information in question. Like a spy that never sleeps. It's as close to omnipotence as he could get, and as close to slavery as I could."

Tatsumi pushed his glasses up his nose. "Even Enma DaiOh has to abide by the laws. He can't force you to do this."

Watari bowed his head. He stared at his feet, subconsciously slowing down, for he suddenly felt heavy. "He can. Not force, per say, but he has every right to request my return." He stopped, searching for words, although it could not have been any simpler than to just say it straight. He felt faintly sick and swallowed hard, subconsciously letting one hand rest over his stomach.

"I made a deal with him, Tatsumi," he said at last. "According to which my extension and means of research were granted in return for my cooperation, until the completion of the Mother Project. However you look at it, he kept his part of the agreement. I didn't. I always feared this day would come, but I still hoped it wouldn't. Call me naïve, if you will, but it was a fifty-fifty type of case. I destroyed most of my work, after all. Or so I thought. Until yesterday."

_It's getting harder to face him, _he mused as he looked up. He met a pair of sapphire eyes and even the darkness and the glasses failed to conceal the flicker of bittersweet understanding in them. _I lied to you, _he thought. _In a way, I did. In many ways._

"I'm telling you this for a reason," he continued, focused on keeping his calm. "If it comes to that and Enma gets what he's after, there has to be someone who knows. If that happens, all of you will have to watch your backs. Enma holds grudges, and with the means to have eyes and ears all over the place, he won't hesitate to use it."

Tatsumi slowly tilted his head, never letting his sight stray from Watari's blurry amber eyes. "Are you saying you will give him what he wants?" he asked.

"Do I have a choice?" Watari let out a short, bitter laugh. "I have to admit his ways of getting the point across have become rather creative. For all I know, all of this," he motioned around him, "could be another illusion. How do I know it isn't? I couldn't tell once, how can I be sure now? Maybe this conversation never happened at all. Maybe you're not even here. Maybe there's no 'here', except in my mind."

Watari looked away. For a moment there, he had hoped that letting it all out would make it somewhat easier. But he had caught a hint of hurt, dancing somewhere at the back of Tatsumi's gaze, and he was back to square one with too much weight upon his chest to let him breathe free air again.

"He left me with only one option, Tatsumi. None of us, myself least of all, has any chance against him in an open fight. Maybe there's a way, maybe there isn't. And I only have one way to find out."

For a few long minutes silence hung between them. Watari chased away every other thing he had wished to say, glad to just stay silent together. He had replayed this moment in his mind countless times during the past day, and all it got him was a dull ache in his heart. He let out a quiet sigh.

Tatsumi threw back his head, turning his face up towards the night sky with a sigh of his own. His hands came up and he brushed them across his mouth, taking off his glasses in one swift movement.

"I can't believe you're giving up," he said, a sharp edge around every word.

Watari frowned, surprised. "I'm not," he said, though he realized he didn't do a great job at being convincing. "I'm just doing the only sensible thing I can do. If there's a way out of this, I'll find it. If there isn't..." he paused and bit down on his lower lip. "If there isn't, then I guess it's only fair. I got myself into this and it's my problem to bear it."

He shifted into the spirit form the second his eyes began to burn. It made no sense to continue this. The last thing he wanted was an argument with Tatsumi, when it could have been their last chance to talk at all. He crossed dimensions back into Meifu, to where they had come from, vaguely aware of Tatsumi doing the same close behind.

He leaned back, bracing his shoulders against the wall. Consciously aware that he should have left, while he still kept his composure, he found himself almost unable to take that final step. He crossed his arms, and he felt himself tremble. The deep breath he took was a shuddering one.

He opened his mouth to finally end it, but a sudden thought stopped him at once. After all, what did one say in a moment like that? To someone he cared for, he refused to say a simple 'goodbye'.

"I should go," he said quietly. "I probably should have said something to the others, but I didn't want to lie again."

Tatsumi nodded, not looking at him as he asked, "What should I tell them?"

"I doubt you'll have to say much," Watari said. He cleared his throat. It felt strange to be straightforward like this, about all those things he had never thought he would come to say. "I believe you'll find a copy of a request for my transfer on your desk tomorrow morning. Enma's orders, that's all. I'm not the first one to go."

With that he tore himself away from his spot, almost forcefully, and took a few steps towards the stairs. He clenched his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut for a second and waved to Tatsumi with one hand, not trusting himself to turn around.

"Be well, partner."

He took another step, the first one on his way down the shadow-rimmed staircase, and he knew something in him began to break.

"Watari."

_No, Tatsumi, _he thought, and his heart stopped at the sound of footsteps behind him. He kept walking, a slow descent and he cursed himself for holding back, for being too weak to just do what he knew he had to do. The steps behind him grew louder, quicker, and he thought how stupid it would be to run, and that he should, that it made so little sense to let the moment drag--

"Yutaka."

Tatsumi's both hands were on his shoulders, stopping him; and Watari couldn't fight, though he knew he should have. For the sake of them both. Slowly he shook his head, bit his lips, tried to keep moving but failed miserably.

"Stay."

"I can't," he whispered, and his voice betrayed him. As did his eyes, shedding twin tears that escaped the net of shattered self control. He choked back a sob as they rolled slowly down his cheeks. And he all but let himself go when a warm pair of hands found their way around his neck, as those strong arms embraced him, pulled him back against the heat of Tatsumi's chest. A warm breath, shuddering like his own, carried the soft, broken voice.

"Just tonight. Stay."

-

* * *

Author's Note: 

Due to the recent questions regarding the similarities between the _Against the Wind_ series by yours truly and _Pawn_ by my friends, Macx and LaraBee, from their _Darkness Unleashed_ series, I'd like to follow their example and quench the fire before it spreads. :) The similarities stem from the fact that we are using the same canon base. Any other similar elements, should you find any, are coincidental and neither of us minds it being so. :)


	9. Chapter Eight

The music:  
Bush - _40 Miles From the Sun_  
Loreena McKennit - _Dante's Prayer_  
Silverchair - _Without You_

-  


* * *

- 

**Against the Wind**  
Chapter Eight

-

"Just tonight. Stay."

_Stay._

His mind echoed Tatsumi's voice, time and again, hushing his own frantic thoughts. As if under the touch of a soothing spell, Watari felt the tension that had held his resolve together melt away in the warmth of the other's breath against his neck. And Tatsumi was holding him, strong and steady; he was not letting go even as Watari heard his own voice whispering that he had to go.

And gone he should have; that much he knew without any doubt. It was wrong to linger. The irony of the moment stung bitterly somewhere in his heart. Now, of all times, Tatsumi was pleading with him not to leave. Only it was not an escape, what he had to do; not this time – he knew all too well that he had nowhere to run.

But he could stay.

_Just tonight._

He stood there, silent, and the free-falling, unrestrained tears felt hot on his face. It wasn't supposed to be like this, he mused absently as he tried to will himself to muster some sense of self control. I wasn't supposed to break.

But he knew all along; there had been cracks in his shell as old as his own heart. They ran deeper and deeper with each year, with every dream that went away; every time he stopped to think of everything he didn't have. It was that touch, he thought; it somehow completed him. It had opened his eyes to a new perspective on the world of delusional belief that he was beyond such simple human needs. And now that it was filling him – that overwhelming sense of completion – in the same instant he realized that it would not last; and it was too much, too heavy, too strong for him to hold on to any of his choices anymore.

_Stay._

Holding him up, without needless words, Tatsumi was just there, as if it had always been his place to be. The Shadow Master had leaned his head on his shoulder and buried his face in his tangled hair. Watari listened to his calm, steady breathing, subconsciously calming down as his own strove to synchronize. Just tonight, he repeated, and it was a promise. Just this once. Perhaps it was right. Maybe with nowhere left to hide, he could teach himself to believe that right there and then, he needed not hide anymore. Perhaps just tonight everything would somehow be fine, and maybe in the end he could come to terms with himself, forgive--

A flash of silky black surrounded him and Watari gasped, wrenching himself out of Tatsumi's arms.

"Watari?"

He took a sharp turn, face to face with Tatsumi – _not Enma, _he told himself, _not Enma, for gods' sake – _he fixed his frightened stare upon the Shadow Master's face.

"Are you all right?"

Tatsumi was looking at him, a soft yet worried expression on his face. That voice, he knew it so well. That man, the same one Watari had known for years; it _had _to be him, and no one else – not an illusion, not a trick, not this time, no – and yet, Watari froze in brittle expectation, waiting for the image in front of him to shatter into pieces and crush him all over again.

He let out a shuddering sigh. "I'm fine," he said. "Fine."

Tatsumi shook his head. "No, you're not," he said. He moved as if to approach him, but thought better of it, his hand halting in midair halfway towards Watari's arm. Glancing sideways, Tatsumi reached for his glasses instead and pushed them further up his nose.

"Come," he said in a quiet voice, inclining his head towards the door. "It's cold here. Let's go inside."

Watari nodded, but his legs felt inadequate to the task of taking a step. He inhaled deeply and pressed a cool palm to his forehead. His face was burning; the soothing cold only a momentary relief. Tatsumi stood, waiting, patiently watching him gather the strength again to force himself to move. Through half-closed eyes, Watari observed him carefully for a few long moments, searching for the signs of illusion. _As if you could tell, _his thoughts never failed to provide a harsh reality check. But Tatsumi was still Tatsumi, and everything around them was silent and calm.

He took one step, and another, and he cast a fearful glance at his partner again in passing, hushing a brief thought that it was not a good idea to let anyone stay behind his back. Tatsumi's steps against the wooden floor chased him and soon the man was at his side. They exchanged looks, the other's no doubt meant to reassure him, though Watari's pounding heart ignored the deep tranquility of Tatsumi's eyes.

A soft blanket of darkness wrapped the interior of the house; the all but impenetrable black disturbed by nothing save an even darker shadow that brushed past him as they entered and Tatsumi moved to turn on the light. The sand under his eyelids dissolved a little, away from the harsh light. The sudden touch of darkness was soothing and strangely calm. Like Tatsumi himself, he mused, though he knew that he couldn't tell what went on in the man's mind under that shield of near-serenity.

The air felt fresh and cool there, he noticed absentmindedly, with a faint scent of coffee lingering on the featherlight breeze from a window, left open somewhere in the house. Tatsumi reached past him for the light switch and Watari caught his hand before he made it there.

"Do you mind leaving it like this?" he asked, suddenly realizing just how strange that must have sounded. He was partly glad that he could not see well.

"Not at all," Tatsumi's soft voice came from somewhere to his right; close, _so close, _he almost felt the man's breath on his face, almost heard a faint hint of a smile. "If it's fine with you. I can see well in the dark."

_Figures, _Watari mused. A Shadow Master, after all. Such skills as those Tatsumi possessed had to come with extra perks.

"It feels good," he said, a hair's breadth away from giving in to the urge to let out a bitter laugh. _Good _fell rather short of an accurate description of how he felt, the uneasiness and fear and a sick sense of expectation gnawing at his stomach all the while. But it would have to do.

"The living room is to your left. Make yourself comfortable. I'll be with you in a moment."

The shadow shifted, a fluid movement at the edge of his peripheral vision, and the soft whisper of Tatsumi's discarded coat reached him before the man vanished in another part of the house. Watari slipped out of his own coat and left his shoes by the door, trying to see around him as his eyes gradually got used to the darkness. He made his way across the hall in a few careful steps. He remembered from his previous visits there that Tatsumi's house was furnished rather sparsely and, with the man's knack for cleanliness, he had a small chance of stumbling upon anything.

In the front room, the half-drawn blinds let in some faint, scattered ribbons of silver light, with long, wide shadows spilling across the floor. Watari stopped in the middle of the room, turning back towards the doorway and listened to the barely audible sounds of Tatsumi moving around, the soft click of glass seeping in from the kitchen.

It felt so... normal, all of a sudden, as if nothing had happened at all. Watari caught himself desperately trying to believe that all of it, until now, had been just a dream. A nightmare, and nothing but; had he not woken up from those before? They always ended before dawn, and he felt fine again, if not a little sore from the restless sleep.

The sofa felt real when he ran a still-shaking hand across the dark, smooth surface. It felt solid as he sank onto it and leaned back, closing his eyes to ease the stubborn burning there. His own hair felt as it always had when he brushed it away from his face, and the cushion under his hand had unquestionable substance as he curled his fingers around it. Yet so had the illusion, he remembered, and he could not tell the difference if his sanity depended on it.

Which it did. The minutes dragged and Watari couldn't rid himself of the overwhelming sense of near-panic that swarmed his thoughts. How did he define reality, again? He had to find a way, fast, before doubt and too many questions took the better of him and he lost whatever he still had left.

The sound of footsteps brought him back to reality – _did it? - _and Watari started a little, pulling himself up from his lean as Tatsumi walked into the room. He carried two small cups of what that had to be coffee, for the scent of it, and an already lit candle in his other hand. He set all three on the table in front of Watari, making brief eye contact before he settled himself on the sofa, a small distance away.

Questions, Watari mused, glad for the drink – if not for the warmth of the still steaming coffee, then at least for something to occupy his hands with. You must have so many of them, he thought. He watched Tatsumi in silence, the dark profile against the twilight of the room, the faint glow of the candle illuminating his skin. All the _how _and _why _and _what will happen _and what am I going to do now, anyway? _I wish I knew, too._

Quiet, Tatsumi stared down at his hands; long fingers of his one hand interlaced with the other. Watari didn't mind giving him time; the man had a lot to think about, and he did not feel particularly talkative, himself.

Yet when Tatsumi spoke again, for the first time in a longer while, he unwittingly pushed Watari back into the searing numbness of dread.

"Why did you agree to such a deal?"

He shuddered. Good question, that. He had been asking himself, now and then, but he knew it only amounted to a waste of time. The answer to that question belonged to the decisions he could no longer reverse.

"It was a great opportunity, at that time," he said.

Tatsumi turned his head. "A great opportunity, indeed."

Watari winced. "It's so easy to judge the book by the cover, Tatsumi," he said, impatience and something that, to him, sounded very much like an idle excuse laced into his words. "Make it a plastic-wrapped one. No way to peek inside before you buy it. And I had nothing to lose, anyway." He swallowed around a sudden dryness in his throat. Back then, I didn't, he thought bitterly. "I was twenty four and dead. It's not like I had any better prospects in sight."

Tatsumi gave a small nod of his head but he did not turn. Staring into the window, he slowly sipped his coffee, content to keep his thoughts to himself.

Watari twirled his own cup idly between his fingers, absorbing the quickly escaping warmth it gave off. A feeble comfort, that; but a good distraction, enough to help him contain himself.

"We have known each other for years," Tatsumi said at last. "You don't submit, Watari. I assume you have something resembling a plan..." his voice trailed off as he turned, dark eyes sweeping a careful look around Watari's slightly hunched form.

Inwardly, Watari recoiled a little. "I'll think of something," he murmured under his breath, leaning forward to put his cup away. He met Tatsumi's eyes and took in that strange look in them, tensing a bit at the change in his face.

"But if it's as you said, and Enma--"

An instant shift and Watari's hand covered Tatsumi's mouth. "--is the Lord of Meifu and he will do as he sees fit," he finished pointedly, shaking his head. If he had to take risks himself, he would at least see to it that Tatsumi didn't add a contribution of his own to the collective sum.

Tatsumi caught that hand in one of his, the other setting his coffee cup back onto the table. He didn't let go even as he nodded the confirmation of his understanding for the need of silence.

"Your hands are cold," he said, his fingers applying a gentle pressure to the back of Watari's hand. Then he let go and pulled his eyes off his partner, all of a sudden too self-conscious for comfort.

"They always are," Watari answered calmly, though he failed to keep the sour undertone away from his voice.

He moved to look away; the minute shift of weight still let him watch Tatsumi out of the corner of his eye. His chest felt tight as he caught a glimpse of the Shadow Master reaching out both of his hands towards him; Tatsumi fell motionless like that, frozen in wait for... him? Watari held his breath. That silent determination; he had seen it before, when the man had crossed the threshold and stepped onto the shaky foundation on which it all began. A wordless beckoning, so hopeful in those sapphire eyes; a silent plea for trust. And Watari searched for it desperately inside himself, pushing past the dread, past the memory of the pain, past the scars from the moment when Enma had turned that man he held so dear into a tool that broke his heart.

_Just tonight._

He took Tatsumi's hands, uncertain at first, the damp warmth of the other's palms so real, so _alive_ under his touch. Hushing questions, quenching doubt, he pulled himself closer, and closer, reason losing to need as he relished the softness of the Shadow Master's skin. And Tatsumi waited, letting him guide his hands to rest upon his chest, above his pounding heart. He held still until Watari's fingers wandered around his neck, gently sliding across his skin as he pulled him in, lips seeking lips, sharing warm breath. Only then Tatsumi let his arms move slowly to wrap around him – that warmth, Watari craved it – he had for so long; now he followed that need, drawn like a moth to a flame. And Tatsumi gave it freely, and he had _so much _of it; he radiated the heat of his own need, drawing closer still, one hand pressed between Watari's shoulder blades.

Watari gave in, even as he felt himself break and melt away; he reached to take Tatsumi's glasses, and his own, out of the way and when he leaned into those inviting arms, he knew he was undone. Real or not, it didn't matter anymore. He tasted coffee in the moistness of Tatsumi's mouth, bittersweet like that moment, his control all but gone the instant those lips parted, let him in. Tatsumi's hands coaxed him towards oblivion to all save the miniature world of their shared breath, and Watari went gladly, releasing a quiet moan as they joined into one.

Swept away on a tidal wave of searing need, he let himself sink deeper into that warmth. He felt his body respond to the caress with a tingling that rose and grew at the edges of his sensitized nerves. He buried his hands in the softness of Tatsumi's hair, the gentle insistence reshaping itself to the rhythm of his heartbeat, melting into desperation as he ran his tongue across his lips. He had been starved for such intimacy, each second of it priceless, for so long. _Too long_. He bit Tatsumi's lip, his heart skipping a beat over a fleeting fear that he'd hurt him, but Tatsumi returned the kiss, over and over again, his hands hot against his back. Guiding him, holding him, keeping his shuddering being together when Watari felt as though he were falling apart at his touch.

"Don't let go," he whispered, his voice hoarse, his heavy breath hot between them. His eyes slid shut and he focused on just being, existing only where the distance between them dissolved in the urgent need to feel, to _live _again, where there was nothing save Tatsumi in his arms. And he felt as though he came to life again; that sparkle of crystal clear essence of his soul waking up from slumber summoned tears that burned behind his eyes. _Don't let go. _

When their lips parted, Tatsumi placed a gentle hand on Watari's cheek. He closed his eyes against unbidden memories, letting the caress soothe the scars, willing away all inquiries, unwanted images that tainted the feeling with a bitter layer of residual disgust. If he had understood Enma's reasons before - to an extent, anyway - he hated him now; for spoiling the moment with his lingering presence amidst his thoughts. He sighed.

Tatsumi's fingers traced the length of his face, ghosting over his lips as though he, too, wanted to memorize every curve, every texture, to let his skin remember how he felt. Watari leaned against him, his cheek brushing Tatsumi's, his fingers curling tightly around the man's arm. Like a freefall, he mused, only I'm clinging, this time. He tried not to think of how they could be falling together, from now on; his weight pulling Tatsumi down towards the inevitable end. So unwise of him to have stayed, and yet there was nowhere else he wanted to be.

Tatsumi's warm hands rubbed his stiff shoulders, gently working the painful knots there, time and again brushing as far as his neck. Like an afterthought, an idle caress, and the silence between them disturbed by breath alone felt like a balm on his weary mind. Drifting off under the weight of his eyelids, too heavy to let him keep his eyes open any longer, he tried to will away all thoughts, lose himself in Tatsumi's arms and believe, if only for a moment, that this night would somehow defy the laws of time and last until the end of days. That dawn was too far away for him to care, that he wouldn't have to go anywhere. That all had been said and done before and being here, now, was all that mattered in the world.

He balanced on the thin line between wakefulness and uneasy dreams, in and out, dozing off and waking again when the strain of the never-ending idle thoughts strayed onto too shaky grounds. Sometimes he felt Tatsumi's hand caressing his hair, fingers carding through the strands, untangling the small knots. Other times, vaguely aware of being touched, he moved restlessly against Tatsumi's chest, grasping the clothes under his hand. He chased doubt and momentary panic that all had vanished only because he let himself sleep, heeding the faint echo of a fleeting thought that pushed him to seek his warmth.

Eventually, calmer but not rested, Watari gave up and opened his eyes. He smiled at the rhythmic stroking of Tatsumi's hand at the back of his neck. Still there, he thought. Still with me. Tatsumi himself looked as though he slept, his head resting against the cushions, serenity painted on his face that, without his glasses, seemed eerily young.

"You're awake," he whispered sleepily, shifting his weight to take a closer look.

A hint of a tiny smile tugged at the corners of Tatsumi's mouth. "So are you."

"You've been watching me."

One eye cracked lazily open and Tatsumi looked down, not moving an inch, his hand in Watari's hair never ceasing to brush up and down. "Preposterous."

Watari licked his dry lips, squinting to see the Shadow Master's face. "You have."

"For a while," Tatsumi answered after a moment, leaning over him now for a closer look of his own. "Does it bother you?"

He chuckled. "Like hell."

"I figured."

This close, he studied the pair of eyes locked on his; their blue entrancing, even as something like sadness – a hint of regret, maybe – danced at the back of Tatsumi's gaze, and Watari wondered what he was thinking.

"You said you wanted a peek inside the shell," he said, tracing small circles on Tatsumi's arm with his thumb.

"I regret nothing."

Watari sighed lightly, wiping the remnants of sleep away from his face with the back of his hand. "You probably should."

"I beg to differ." Tatsumi shook his head.

The loose strands of dark hair tickled the tip of his nose. Watari blew them gently away, pulling himself up a little. Propped on one hand, he half-leaned against Tatsumi and he felt himself wake completely at the scent of that man, the warmth of his skin burning under his shirt. He reached out, fingertips brushing at the buttons as his hand ran up, ever so slowly, sneaking beneath the collar to touch that heat, to feel him again.

"If you say so." Mouth ghosting over Tatsumi's neck, he felt his own heartbeat pick up along with the other's, a sudden rush of blood through his veins at every tiniest point of contact left him lightheaded and all but beyond the point of thoughts of any measure of control.

So long, he thought, arching lightly as he felt Tatsumi's warm breath against his skin. So long. He traced the well-defined line of Tatsumi's jaw with the tip of his tongue; his hands grew restless in their roaming across his chest, up his arms, around his neck. Embracing him, Watari pulled himself up onto his knees and shifted his weight until he straddled his hips.

One hand sneaking between Tatsumi's thighs, he leaned over and claimed his half-open mouth, the tension that grew by the second stripping gentleness from his tongue as he urged those lips to part even further. Swept away, forgotten, reason left him and there was only need burning his flesh, guiding him to the warmth that was Tatsumi under him, trembling fingers fumbling with the buttons of his shirt.

Tatsumi caught his hands before impatience added too much to the strength with which he pulled at his clothes. "Watari."

Eyes blurry, breath heavy, Watari half-registered that hand stopping him and his name, spoken in a tone that was not passion, but restraint. He looked at Tatsumi's face, the image painted with a thick brush before him and, panting, he tipped his head. "Yes?"

Tatsumi gave his head a light shake, holding Watari's hand down in a grasp that told him more than any words would. "Not like this," he said, his voice gentle yet firm.

Watari watched the blue turn dark, a sickly layer of pulsating fear over his pounding heart. He drew back a little, sandy brow furrowed. "Like how?" For a moment, he only heard the wild racing of his own heart, and his suddenly all too loud, ragged breath. The room whirled around him.

There was too much space between them, he thought frantically, pulling his hand free from Tatsumi's grasp because he kept it too far from the warmth of his lips. And Tatsumi was talking, a muffled sound behind the broken veil around his mind; something about it being the wrong time and how he would feel like he was taking unfair advantage and how the circumstances rendered rash decisions folly. But Watari couldn't care less, his mind shutting down as his head dropped into his hands; and he would have got up and left, if not for the overwhelming numbness that took him.

He pressed his palms to his face, fingers digging into his eyes to burn away the memory of that treacherous blue piercing him with passion, aflame, then put out by logic and fear and gods knew what else, over and over again. His skin felt icy cold now where Tatsumi's hands had been; deprived of touch and lonely, he kept no warmth of his own.

A hand rested against the back of his neck; he shrugged it off, pulled away, but as it did not leave and he reached to remove it, and strong, warm fingers interlaced with his own, the suffocating darkness around him began to disperse. A shuddering sigh escaped his chest.

_What the _hell _am I doing? _Watari bowed his head. "Who am I, Tatsumi?"

The Shadow Master moved, rumpled clothes whispering; he let go of his hand and took him by the shoulders, putting gentle pressure on his rigid form until Watari laid his head down on his lap.

"You are Watari Yutaka," he said, smoothing his back with his hand to help him relieve the tension. "My partner."

Watari closed his eyes. "Not anymore."

"You say that now." Tatsumi inclined his head. "But everything changes, doesn't it? How do you know this won't?"

Tatsumi's touch made him shiver again and Watari swallowed thickly, willing himself to relax. The question did nothing to help with that at all. "At this point, I'm not sure what I know and what I don't," he said. "How do you define reality, Tatsumi?" Sighing, he lifted one hand to ease the pain that had taken up residence in his temple with a light massage. "Even now, I set everything – you, myself, this place – against what I know, and it looks—it feels real, but I go back to the illusion and that felt real, as well. No definition I know covers exceptions that can't be forged. Reality is everything that exists, in every sense of the word, but that means the word's not quite suitable anymore, because all those things there existed, too. In a way, they did. In my mind."

Tatsumi took a deep breath, looking slightly away. "You're working yourself up to--" he broke off, his hands on Watari's back pausing, too.

"To insanity?" Watari let out a dark, humorless chuckle. "Don't feel bad, Tatsumi; you're right and I'm aware of that. But I need a proof. A way to tell beyond doubt. Otherwise I'll just keep running in circles, like right now."

Tatsumi cupped the back of Watari's head, his other hand sliding under his arm to turn him, to meet his eyes before he spoke again. "Will you find it where you're going?"

Looking up, Watari met sadness; Tatsumi's serious eyes searched his for the answer, for proof of his own that it would be truthful. "I hope so," he whispered. "And I wonder who will take my place."

Twirling a thin strand of golden hair around his finger, Tatsumi leaned a little further forth. "No one."

Watari frowned. No one? The calm of the Shadow Master's face seemed almost inadequate. "But someone will have to take care of--"

"You told me there's nothing wrong with doing what I want. I remember that. Kinki is slow. I will watch over it while you're away."

Was that a tint of hope saturating that endless blue? He wondered, blinking as he replayed Tatsumi's words in his mind. "Tatsumi..."

"Your choice and mine don't have to contradict. If you have to go, so be it. Your choice, or a necessity, that's quite irrelevant, right now. But if you have the right to do that, then I have the right to make my own choice, too. And I choose to wait."

Watari shook his head, even as he could not stop a small smile from claiming the corners of his lips. "That figures," he said, as lightly as he could manage. "You've always had a knack for dwelling on the past."

Tatsumi made an impatient noise. "You are not the past," he said.

"I'm not exactly the future, either."

Watari did not know whether either of them was still being serious. But Tatsumi's gaze spoke the truth; that could never lie, he had learned a long time ago, it could never hide the contradiction between the words and the man's heart. And even as he kept looking for it, for a long time, he saw no conflict at all.

Tatsumi only smiled, absently stroking his hair. Watari watched him until the sand under his eyelids returned and the warmth of the Shadow Master's arms embracing him hushed his thoughts.

At the edge of another dreamland opening up before him, he wondered if the soft whisper promising never to let go was Tatsumi's, or his own.

-

Watari woke alone.

He knew that before he opened his eyes; the presence of comfort he had subconsciously sensed before, the warmth of another person sleeping next to him, was gone. He was covered in a thick blanket instead, with a soft pillow under his head. He could not tell how long he had slept, except that the room felt much warmer than the night before, and even the tightly closed blinds could not keep the small, radiant rays of the sun completely out.

He stifled a yawn, stretching cramped muscles. Struggling back into focus, he rubbed the remnants of sleep away from his eyes. The previous night was a blur in his mind, suppressed by a new onset of disquietude as he remembered _that _was the day he would take the plunge, back to the beginning and, no matter how much he wanted to keep putting it off, it would not work. Not anymore. So he cast his mind back to Tatsumi, and blessed his patience and the silent understanding he had mustered, for him, before Watari himself had managed to push the situation out of control.

The clock on the wall read 11:17 and Watari smiled. For having stayed awake most of the night, Tatsumi still had not so much as considered taking it easy, for a change, nor had he allowed himself a chance for proper rest. But he had gone easy on him, he mused; far easier than he would have expected from a man like him. Even if that no longer mattered. Today, he had no work to rush to again, as he had for years. Today, there was one Shinigami less in the Shokan Division, and Tatsumi... had said that it would stay that way?

Watari shook his head. It seemed foolish, even if Tatsumi would likely argue that the budget only benefited from a solution like that. He would, Watari knew, and he knew that it would be just one reason among many others. For what it was worth, Tatsumi had made sure that, before they parted ways, he knew that he had a place to return to. That he would be missed.

Something to try for, he mused as he worked his way out of the tangled covers and rose to his feet.

His eyes made a careful study of the room; he had not expected notes or any signs of Tatsumi at all, beyond the usual hints at someone living there, but curiosity claimed the better of him and he scanned the place cautiously anyway. He suspected he had not so much as stirred when Tatsumi had gone out; exhausted after too many long, stressful hours in the waking world, he made a lame adversary against the need for rest. Tatsumi had left at the crack of dawn, he knew, and he had left quietly. No goodbyes, no well-wishes or promises to remember, to think.

He was glad.

The easy way might have been nothing but a myth, yet all the difficult ones he could think of would not have been welcome at all. Now he remembered the good parts of it, with only a small stain of his lost control to give his memories an extra shade. He felt his cheeks flush slightly at that thought, and he laughed – sincerely, this time. Quite a way, that, to make himself remembered.

He folded the blanket neatly and put it away in the corner of the sofa, the pillow on top of it. For a moment he simply stood there, taking in every detail of the room, committing to memory everything that had taken place there ever since Tatsumi had asked him to stay. He let his mind run through it all over again, to make sure nothing got lost in the haze of his thoughts. He caught himself wishing that he could suddenly find a way, or a reason, not to walk away; that he could hide from the eyes of the world, and it was such a pathetic hope – but he didn't even mind.

Before he left, he would make sure Tatsumi had something from him to return to after work.

Reluctantly, he left the house in spirit form and went back to his apartment, quite loath to linger as every minute added to the knot that had begun to grow in his stomach again. But the sight of the almost perfect order he found at his place made him shed a silent tear; of all the things he could have done, Tatsumi had taken care of his last visit there to be least unpleasant for him.

He took a quick shower and changed his clothes, all the while running a mental check on everything he had yet to arrange. He squished ruthlessly every needless question, all the doubt, when his mind insisted on pondering the situation again. He settled for giving himself time and making the best of what he had, little of it as there was.

Shortly past noon, he left and never looked back.

-

He had hardly seen the JuuOhCho during the day in the recent years; caught up in his work, he had spent countless hours in his lab, and the cases he'd had required visits in other divisions only once or twice. The Ministry had a peculiar sense of life to it; for having employees who were either dead, or not nearly human enough to be considered alive in the usual sense, it could still easily be taken for anything but that. He had only stopped for a short while, before he made his way inside, to take a deep breath – before the plunge, he had mused – which had to be a rather accurate description of what he had come to do. Once there, he decided, he would do his best to find his way _out _of there again.

Lost in thought, Watari halted at the end of one of the corridors only to realize that he had taken the wrong turn. He shook his head. Old habits died hard, but Shokan was not where he was headed, this time. He turned on his heel with a small sigh, and the way back seemed longer to him, as though he had realized then and there that the way he had gone was not his anymore.

"Watari!"

His head whipped around at the sound of his name. Behind him, Tsuzuki hurried past two young-looking women chattering in front of their office to catch up with him.

All of a sudden, the temperature in the building went right through the roof.

He greeted Tsuzuki with a wave of his hand, cursing in his mind as he watched the man approach him with a worried look on his face. He had hoped he could avoid that, at least, that he would not have to lie. Tough luck, that.

"You wanted to vanish without a word?" Tsuzuki stopped by his side, arms folding over his chest. His shirt was wrinkled, the way it had been for as long as Watari remembered; his tie askew and the state of his hair told him that he must have been grossly late for work again.

He met Tsuzuki's eyes, easily to any side spectator, but he could tell the hints of hurt in his friend's purple eyes. It almost made him flinch. Tsuzuki would not be taken with any of his easy smiles.

"The higher-ups insisted," he said, swallowing down the sting of guilt that lay, like a bitter aftertaste, underneath the words. "I got transferred."

"So I've heard." Tsuzuki nodded, his eyes narrowing a little. "But you could have told us. A goodbye would have been nice."

Watari fought the urge to look away; a quirk that would not have gone unnoticed on his longtime friend. "Apologies. It was sort of sudden and I--"

"Watari," Tsuzuki interrupted, lifting his hand. "What is this _really _all about?"

"My transfer?" Watari folded his hands in the small of his back, squeezing both fists tight to keep his composure intact. "They need me elsewhere, that's all. I wouldn't have gone if it were up to me, but obviously it isn't, so--"

"Where are you working now?" Tsuzuki cut in again, suspicion now obvious in the way he made a close study of him and Watari felt himself deflate a little under that questioning stare.

_You don't want to know. _"The Science Department," he said evenly, holding up Tsuzuki's gaze. The memory of his friend's illusory self flashed in his mind's eye, the accusatory words still fresh in his memory. _You lied to us. _Watari shrugged.

"I see." Tsuzuki's shoulders slumped. "Drop by some time, will you?" He looked up, a sorrowful glint at the edge of his gaze. "I'll miss you. Potions and all."

Watari forced a smile, but he bit down on the inside of his cheek. "I'll see what I can do," he said. _Vain promises is all you have, _his inner voice offered a harsh reprimand, but he could not bring himself to say anything closer to the truth. He took a step and flung his arms around Tsuzuki's neck; a brief hug, ended before his calm began to melt. "Take care."

He pulled back and waved, turning quickly before Tsuzuki could see the pain welling up in him. He caught the last glimpse of his friend's face; Tsuzuki nodded solemnly as he watched him go, and he waved back, but the simple gesture bore none of his usual cheer.

The image stayed with him all the way down to where everything had begun, thirty years before.

-

A distant noise of someone's fingers flying over a keyboard was first to welcome him back. The guard at the entrance to the underground facility barely spared him a glance as Watari approached, cautious calm on his face but sharp bolts of dread deep in his heart. Only few could walk in there like that, and he was once their chief. The Head Researcher, big words next to his name that used to matter, before the tables turned. When the facade of secrecy finally fell, all that he had left was a filthy veil under which Watari Yutaka was nothing but a tool.

He did not have the mind to keep up appearances, this time. A closer study of the place revealed no obvious changes at the front; not many, anyway, and he guessed the security system must have been the same as well. Efficiency had always been valued above all else in there; with no need for change, no one would waste the precious time to work on such things.

Past the door, Watari held his breath. The voices hushed, and it felt almost like a déjà vu – heads turned at the sight of him, some of the scientists no doubt recognizing him from the moment he took the first step inside.

"You sure did take your time."

He turned rapidly, only to come face to face with what he had written off as an illusion just the day before. "Tategami," he stammered, his stomach almost flipping backwards as the woman sent him a wry smirk.

"Who did you expect, a ghost?" she asked in a voice that held as much derision as it had mockery.

Watari's last memories of her were nothing like that. She had never been among the nicest people aboard, he could give her that. Then again, such traits fell somewhat short of any of their characters, anyway. "Well," he swallowed forcefully. His mouth went dry. "Last time I checked, you were--"

"_Working_, while you were wasting time chasing wayward souls." She rolled her eyes. "About damn time you quit fooling around."

"--lost," he finished, his voice trailing off as a quiet sound of clapping hands derailed his train of thought.

He turned, as did Tategami; he watched her bow in well-feigned respect before the tall, black-clad god who crossed the spacious lab in long, unhurried steps.

"Congratulations," Enma said, black eyes measuring Watari from head to toe. "You made the right choice. I hope the last night was a pleasant treat?"

_Gods, no._ The very words, that tone, the implications made him sick.

Enma swept a calculating look around him, his gaze resting briefly on Tategami before it settled back on Watari's face.

"KinU, GyokuTo," he said, gesturing for them to follow. "This time, do it right."

-

* * *

_GyokuTo (tr. Jade Hare) - see Yami no Matsuei, chapter 57 for canon reference. _


	10. Chapter Nine

The music:  
Apocalyptica_ - Bittersweet, Faraway  
_Vas_ - Feast of Silence  
_

-  


* * *

- 

**Against the Wind**  
Chapter Nine

-

The transfer orders concerning Watari Yutaka were a single sheet of white paper, stark and offensively pristine atop his desk. The Summons Division, Tatsumi mused, had not been so quiet in decades.

Just a few hours earlier, the chilly morning had found the Shadow Master still awake, sore from having spent most of the night in one, not entirely comfortable, position. He had not minded, much; after the turmoil of their first hours together, Watari had finally slipped into slumber under the tender caress of Tatsumi's hands. He had held the exhausted scientist in his arms, slowly falling into a light sleep, time and again, yet he had woken completely every time some demons in Watari's dreams bid the other's cold hands to grasp his own, in what seemed like a desperate attempt not to fall. So Tatsumi had held him tight, soothing him with soft strokes to his hair, until the slender body in his arms relaxed again.

Chasing confounding thoughts had not helped him rest, either. When silence had at last left him face to face with all the information, all the changes – too sudden for any measure of comfort – and with the overflowing emotions, Watari's and his own, sleep seemed like a waste of precious time. Tatsumi had half-lain, half-sat on his sofa and, as Watari's hand slipped subconsciously into his again, he had found himself hard-pressed to think of what he would say when the other woke as well.

Goodbye seemed too final; despite unpromising facts, Tatsumi himself had refused to let go. He had done that before, over half a century before. That escape from the traps of the heart had left him regretful, caught between logic and every 'what if' that had forced itself to the front of his mind. He had promised himself not to do that again. Even so, the words of comfort had never come easily to him; elusive as they were, they sounded too trite, most of them. Those that did not, could hardly make it past his lips. Had he thought of any, he would have offered solutions; a maneuver he habitually fell back on in situations like that. For anybody else, under any other circumstances, it would have probably worked. Given enough time, he would have come up with a remedy that, by all rules of logic, pushed the matters in the right direction.

Yet, as he lay in the dispersing darkness and watched the shadows grow thin at the crack of dawn, the weight of Watari's words had sunk in and Tatsumi himself had begun to feel trapped in a place with no way out of it. Try as he might, he had found no solution to offer, no easy way to help his partner. Neither of the hard paths seemed suitable, too.

So he had summoned all strength he had and prepared to go as soon as his thoughts approached the threshold of panic. He had fought with himself, suppressing regret, ignoring the pang in his heart as he left Watari with a pillow and a blanket to keep him warm. A puny substitute for himself, he thought, but Watari would understand. Yet he could not help but turn his head when Watari murmured his name softly in his sleep, his fingers curling around the blanket in the absence of Tatsumi's hand. It had taken all willpower he had left to walk out, his own shadow tainted with the knowledge that he might never see Watari again.

Now, as he sat at his desk, absently smoothing his tie, the deaf silence he had always associated with pleasant peace felt empty, hostile in its bitter coldness. A herald of change that, he feared, could not be undone.

-

The amount of work awaiting him guaranteed that he would not have much time for idle thoughts. Soon the other Shinigami would arrive at the office, and the usual routine would absorb him again. Work, Tatsumi had learned long ago, was the best remedy he could think of; it helped him ground himself when unfortunate events uprooted his sense of self.

Sighing, he adjusted his glasses and reached for the first pile of reports he had to look through before they would be submitted to Konoe later that day. Monotony had never bothered him; it proved itself to be a good frame in which he knew himself. Everything would soon stabilize, and he would stop thinking unbidden, fearful thoughts that haunted him now. His hands would stop trembling and the disorder in his mind would settle down. He would go back to normal again.

_I don't need this, _he thought, against the dull pain in his heart that insisted on disobedience when he tried to will it away. _It's best to leave these matters be. They are completely out of my control, anyway. _Reasoning helped – it always had, had it not? And so Tatsumi reasoned with himself relentlessly as he sorted the case and expense reports. He tried to hold on to the voice of logic even as his eyes caught a glimpse of familiar, scribbled handwriting, and he told himself that he wouldn't pause there, wouldn't ponder it, wouldn't care. But the sudden wave of sickly heat that welled up in his chest overtook him; it made him wince and soon, the voice turned into a faint echo at the back of his mind.

Coffee stains. Dark brown, long since dried out; transparent enough to reveal the culprit's name – Watari Yutaka – on top of the page. Smudged ink, half-dissolved in probably too sweet liquid, spilled by a careless hand. An oddly angled line, added in haste in far from calligraphic letters – Sorry for the mess! – and an apologetic, completely inappropriate smiling face to go with it.

Tatsumi's shoulders shook. He swept his glasses out of the way, pushed them up into his hairline with a shaky hand. He stared at that report, already almost crumpled in his hand, and he felt himself go rigid the longer he kept his eyes on it. The kanji began to blur, lines melting into the paper, the words merging into one unintelligible mess. He heard his own shuddering sigh escape him and he leaned forward, his elbows hitting the desktop hard as he buried his face in his hands.

_Who am I, Tatsumi? _

The voice of restraint lost to Watari's whisper emerging from the depths of Tatsumi's memory; the far-off cry, chiding him for the weakness of thought, had gone unheeded.

_You are Watari Yutaka. My partner. _

That word had a strange sound when Tatsumi spoke it softly against his hands. His partner. The partner he had cursed out countless times for all of his ridiculous, annoying habits. The partner who had got them in trouble as often as he had got them out of it. The man who had brought sunshine with him to the gloomy office of EnmaCho; who made friends as easily as nobody else Tatsumi knew, whom he had always envied the light heart and the untroubled life.

The same man he had held in his arms the night before, trying to chase away the demons that had left Watari lying broken at their feet. At that, he had failed miserably. He could not save that man, when it was his own mind that pushed him down that road. That realization left Tatsumi breathless and the scientist's last report crushed in his hands.

_I made a deal with him, Tatsumi. _How could you, he thought. How come you didn't see? _Nothing to lose. _It made you blind. _Ambition, _Watari had said, and his voice had sounded so empty, that night. _It leads straight to madness. _

"Tatsumi?"

The Shadow Master looked up. He did not spare himself the silent scoffing for having let himself get caught in such an undignified state. He reached quickly for his glasses and put them back in place, schooling his face to a stern look.

"Good morning, Tsuzuki-san," he greeted the man in doorway with his signature cool voice. "You're late. Again."

Tsuzuki flinched a little. Tatsumi's heart leaped as he caught, out of the corner of his eye, a glimpse of his former partner drawing back half a step. He was only so much in that man's eyes; the one who showed displeasure thrice for every sign of care.

"I, well," Tsuzuki started as he gathered the courage to take a tentative step inside the office, visibly wary of th Secretary's foul mood. "Have you seen Watari?"

Tsuzuki might have as well thrown a book at his head, for the effect his question had on Tatsumi's already brittle composure.

"He didn't show up yesterday, which sort of figured after whatever happened to him the day before. But his lab's closed today as well, and I was looking for him last night but I couldn't find him anywhere."

Tsuzuki kept glancing sideways as he spoke, uneasiness far more than evident in the way he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. His words came quickly; Tatsumi almost recoiled under the worried tone.

"Watari-san doesn't work here anymore."

Meeting Tsuzuki's eyes, Tatsumi suddenly realized what he had said. What those very words meant. The other seemed to shrink in front of him and Tatsumi shared his sentiments. He was almost certain it showed in his own face.

"What?" Tsuzuki asked when he regained control of his voice. "Tatsumi, you didn't..."

The Shadow Master pushed his glasses up his nose, all but giving in to the urge to turn away. If only not to look into those frightened eyes anymore. Didn't do what, he mused. Fire him? Is that what you think of me, Tsuzuki-san?

"The request for Watari-san's transfer came in today," he said in a slow, automatic voice, careful to show none of the apprehension that accompanied every word. The papers under his hand almost burned his skin.

"What? Why?" Tsuzuki crossed the office towards the desk, his arms wrapped around him as though he needed that gesture to keep himself together.

Tatsumi suppressed a shiver. "I don't have that kind of information, Tsuzuki-san." He hated lies. He hated them all the more when he was the one guilty of telling them, good cause or otherwise.

"I don't understand." Tsuzuki shook his head. The confusion and hurt that contorted his face drove a sharp bolt of fresh pain through Tatsumi's heart, even as he forced himself not to look away.

"Please, go back to work," he said evenly. "There is no need to--"

"Oh, no," Tsuzuki cut in. His eyes narrowed. "You're not getting rid of me that easily."

Caught off-guard, Tatsumi broke off and the words escaped him. There had been few instances when Tsuzuki dared confront him in such an open way. His determined tone gave that lie-riddled conversation a new, bitter taste.

Tsuzuki leaned against the desk. "Tatsumi, you know where Watari has gone to. Don't you?"

Holding up that purple gaze, all but swimming with still restrained tears, had grown harder by the second. I do, Tatsumi thought. And if I tell you, how many new kinds of pain will I inflict on you again?

"You know." Tsuzuki nodded, Tatsumi's silence more than a clear sign for his cue to go on. "Tell me. Please, Tatsumi. Watari is my friend. I want at least to..." he paused, his gaze dropping. "Wish him luck."

Tatsumi straightened himself in his chair. "I'm afraid I have not been authorized to reveal that." Fool, he rebuked himself. Pathetic little lies.

"Tatsumi... please."

He watched Tsuzuki's form begin to tremble, his lower lip quivering as he spoke. He could not stand it.

"Tsuzuki-san--" he started, but those eyes fixed upon him, that look of hope mingled with hurt in them, had never failed to crush his resolution before. It yielded under that pleading stare; Tatsumi almost heard it break. "The Science Department," he said. "But I don't suppose you stand any reasonable chance to meet Watari-san right now. He might not be allowed to make contact."

Tsuzuki was not listening any longer than necessary. He lightened up even as he spun and started back towards the door. "Thank you, Tatsumi!" he called over his shoulder on his way out.

Tatsumi slammed his fist into the desktop. The door shutting behind Tsuzuki echoed the hollow sound.

-

By noon, everyone had heard the news.

Tatsumi walked into the break room, keeping his reluctance to do so on a short leash. He nodded half-hearted greetings to the other Shinigami, who seemed even more unnerved than usual in a situation as uncomfortable as this. The place was all but quiet, or at least it had grown so the moment Tatsumi appeared at the door. Had it not been for his need of coffee and lack thereof in his own office, he would not have gone among his co-workers at all. Deep down, he had no wish to replay the earlier conversation he'd had with Tsuzuki with anybody else.

The man in question was present as well; hunched over the table, Tsuzuki nursed a cup of his own coffee with a solemn countenance and little interest in anything at all. He looked up when Tatsumi crossed the room to the coffee machine, but the glance he spared the Shadow Master was too brief for him to catch. A thought to ask whether Tsuzuki had managed to speak with Watari crossed Tatsumi's mind, but he was loath to draw any more attention to himself right now. And the dark, disappointed look in Tsuzuki's eyes told him that, most likely, he had not succeeded at that, anyway.

Kurosaki was nowhere to be seen, he noted before he turned around to fix his drink. Not very surprising, he mused; even he felt the heavy atmosphere in the bullpen and it weighed down on him. The boy's empathy would have made his stay in there most unpleasant. Which probably had been the case; Tatsumi had spotted a book, left on the table next to Tsuzuki, which definitely did not belong to the older of the pair.

He put on a front of normalcy as he reached for his coffee cup, drawing deep, slow yet soundless breaths to uphold the image. He pretended not to hear Watari's name on everybody's lips behind his back. Their whispers could have been shouted straight into his ear, for the effect it had on him, despite his best efforts to separate himself from them. Someone or other was staring at him, too; he could feel the inquiring stare. Was it just him, or had the room grown nearly airless, with too many people in it at once?

Fragmented bits of conversations reached him, strange words that kept slurring together before he had a chance to digest them and clarify the meaning for himself. His palms went damp, hands trembling even as he kept himself steady while he poured the black coffee into his cup.

"_...not coming back?"_

Be quiet, Tatsumi's inner voice groaned. He closed his eyes.

"_New Shinigami?"_

The lump that had been constricting his throat since morning threatened to suffocate him.

"_...too bad. It won't be there same without Watari here." _

Somewhere in front of him, porcelain shattered; a loud aftermath of Tatsumi's slick hand inadvertently letting go of the cup. The burning in his skin and the dead silence sobered him up in a matter of a split second. He cursed under his breath.

"Tatsumi-san?"

Tatsumi looked down. His coffee cup had broken in half; it lay in a dark brown mess of the spilt coffee that trickled and dripped slowly onto the floor at his feet. His hand still burned – not an unwelcome sensation, strangely enough – a reality check, Tatsumi thought bitterly, even as the red marks of the burn had already begun to disappear.

Someone had called his name, he registered belatedly and swept a somewhat panicked glance around the quiet room. He met a worried look in wide open, mismatched eyes.

"Yes, Kannuki-san?" he asked. The girl's raised eyebrow left him painfully aware of how futile his pretense must have seemed to her, and to everybody else. He knew well enough what she wanted, and she knew he would lie the second he opened his mouth. So he kept his silence and looked at the mess he had made instead.

"Here, let me help you."

Kannuki produced a handkerchief from one of her pockets and, ignoring Tatsumi's protests as he tried to take it from her hand, she set herself to the task of wiping the counter top clean.

_How ridiculously humiliating_. Tatsumi pushed his glasses up his nose, his shoulders slumping a little as he let his eyes slide shut for a short while. The sound of the lenses rattling in their frames seemed far too loud in the surrounding silence.

He cleared his throat and turned away to cover his embarrassment, all but ready to scoff the others for staring. He tensed instinctively at the sight behind him; contrary to his expectations, nobody stared. Everyone had left, save Kannuki who had squatted to wipe the stains from the floor as well. The bullpen door moaned on its hinges, swinging lightly back and forth in the wake of whoever had been the last to leave.

Tatsumi sighed.

"It's all right, Tatsumi-san."

Kannuki was looking up at him when the Shadow Master turned. He frowned, displeased, hoping his glare was cold enough to silence her.

"We're all upset," she said, smiling at him; a rather sad smile. "Don't worry about it."

Tatsumi gritted his teeth. The last thing he needed was someone pitying him. Or anyone even noticing how many reasons for that he seemed to have just given them, for that matter. That small smile she had offered must have been there to make him feel better, but Tatsumi felt nothing sans annoyance, rising quickly from the depths of his heavy chest.

He muttered a half-hearted 'thank you' for her help and turned on his heel to walk out of the room, almost on autopilot. It would not have eased his mind; he chose to avoid lashing out on the girl and thus destroying the rest of his dignity. It had already taken quite a painful blow.

Outside, the air seemed none the lighter, he mused. Someone's steps resonated down the hall; a faint sound that reminded him the others would rather scurry for shelter than stay around when he gave any indication of being out of control. Tatsumi knew well what they thought of him; in the end, that was exactly what he had striven for throughout the years. He had made sure fear overruled their concern, so as to spare him the humiliation of pity. It had worked, more often than it had not.

The only one reckless and stubborn enough to ignore his perpetual distant attitude had been Watari.

Tatsumi pressed two fingers against the middle of his brow, treating himself to a light massage. This entire situation, almost blown out of proportion, was getting ridiculous, he thought. The employees had left his division before.

But none of them had you by the heart, his inner voice supplied wryly. Tatsumi squashed it ruthlessly and clenched his hands into tight fists.

He felt almost like the ghosts of his own failures and unfulfilled desires had gathered to hover around him, with no one else to keep him company. It was suddenly too dark in there, too gloomy and cold. Tatsumi gave his head a shake, nervously pinching the bridge of his nose again. He started to walk away just as the break room door screeched open and Kannuki's small silhouette slipped around the edge of the frame.

He wondered how long it would take her, and the rest of them, to forget about that unfortunate incident of his.

He should never have allowed that to happen. Personal sentiments aside, this was business, and he should not have let it become anything but that. He should have left his worries and that strange, empty feeling that continued to gnaw at his heart, at the door. He should have focused on more appropriate matters. Such as the case reports that had piled up on his desk. Or budget plans. Anything, really, to keep his mind away from other things--

Other things. Tatsumi stopped in his tracks with a quick glance down the corridor to make sure he was still alone. _Other things._ Last night, those were not _things _that had kept him awake _–_ it was an armful of a man who had once been the last person, dead or alive, Tatsumi would think capable of crumbling down like that. A man still so young, compared to himself; who, for reasons Tatsumi failed to understand, had turned to him. Of all people, Watari had chosen him. Despite derogatory remarks, pay cuts and endless arguments over the expenses.

It did not seem to matter, in the end, for either of them. The memory of Watari's soft, silky hair tickling him, weaving around his fingers, flushed Tatsumi's face. This should have felt wrong, he thought, but it didn't. _It doesn't._ And only the silent sadness he did not have the heart to explain, even to himself, tainted the memory and left Tatsumi in somber wonderment. I couldn't help you, he mused. I could never help anyone. Not even myself.

He strolled slowly down the narrow, gloomy hall and wondered how many times in the past twenty five years Watari had done so. Not in haste, to come in time for a briefing, but with nothing chasing him, with nothing to weigh down on his mind. Was it ever that way? Tatsumi found himself asking, time and again, now that he looked back at those years, at everything Watari had seemed to be. Set against what he knew today, it only left him confused. So many years, and he had never so much as suspected anything of such sort. Some misjudgment, that.

"...come on. Take it. Take it, silly thing."

Frowning, he looked up. The door to Watari's lab, slightly ajar, let out a small ribbon of artificial light. Someone had to be inside, no doubt, though his hopes died quickly. The voice had sounded nothing like the scientist's.

Perplexed, Tatsumi crossed the remaining distance and stood quietly, glancing inside through the crack in the door.

"If you don't eat, you'll die. I think."

His back turned, the broad figure of Konoe was kneeling, hunched over something on the floor in front of him. Tatsumi's mouth twitched.

"I can't believe I'm talking to an owl."

Tatsumi arched an eyebrow. For some reason, he had assumed the little bird had left along with its master, then he had forgotten about it altogether. His lips quirked in a small, wistful smile.

"Konoe-kachou?" he said as he entered the lab.

Konoe turned with a displeased look on his wrinkled face. "Tatsumi," he said, pointing down in a meaningful gesture. "It looks like Watari left us with a problem here."

Tatsumi walked up to him and glanced over Konoe's shoulder. Indeed, the little owl sat on the floor, its tiny head cocked to the side, positively oblivious to the three worms moving lazily in front of it.

The Shadow Master shrugged off the disturbing connotations that sprang in his mind. Rather grotesque sight, that.

"I think she just misses him," Konoe shrugged his shoulders, picking himself up from his somewhat undignified position on the floor. "She doesn't want to eat."

Tatsumi folded his arms over his chest. "It's a bird." He? She? Watari had always referred to it as she, he recalled. "I'm quite sure she can hunt for her own food." He glanced down at the owl. 003 looked miserable there, unlike every time he had seen her, perched on Watari's shoulder, flapping her wings; goofy exuberance in appreciation of whatever the scientist did. Tatsumi hushed the awkward thought that he could understand her current sentiments in many ways. That was, if owls had any sentiments, to begin with.

This one, Tatsumi decided, seemed to have a plethora of them. "Though, perhaps someone will have to take care of her," he added after a moment.

Konoe gave him a pointed look, dusting off his suit jacket and fixing his tie with his other hand. "Someone."

Tatsumi recoiled a little. "Don't look at me," he said in a voice that would stand no quarrel. "It would cost you more than you can pay."

Scowling, the chief crossed his arms and drummed the fingers of one hand against the opposite forearm. "Well, I don't suppose she will leave the lab anyway. She probably thinks Watari will come back. Maybe all it takes is to let her out, every once in a while."

_She thinks... _003 took flight and, before Tatsumi had a chance to protest or wave her off, she perched herself down on his shoulder. _Owls don't think. Or do they? _

Konoe let out a soft chuckle. "I think she likes you."

"That's ridiculous." Tatsumi frowned. 003 stretched her wings, brown feathers brushing lightly against his cheek. He realized how awkward that must have made him look and lifted his hand to shoo her away. The owl dodged his hand and landed on his shoulder again, closer to his neck, this time. She prodded him lightly with her beak.

The Shadow Master's arms dropped loosely to his sides. He sighed.

"I, ah, must return to work. The break is almost over," Konoe excused himself from the possibility of having to deal with any more bird-related trouble.

"Chief?" Tatsumi stopped him before the man removed himself from the lab completely. "Since the procedure hasn't started yet, I'd like to request that Watari's block be assigned to me."

Konoe gave him a dubious look. "Tatsumi?"

He had made the decision on a whim, last night; against his own policy regarding impetuous actions. But, even now, it did not seem like such a bad idea. The office work had long since stopped satisfying him, anyway, and the few cases he had assisted Watari with had given his otherwise mundane existence a new breath of life. Ironic, that the job of a Shinigami could do that, he thought.

Konoe measured him with careful eyes, expectation evident in his face.

Tatsumi adjusted his glasses, ignoring the minute tickling sensations in his neck, where 003 was busily making herself comfortable.

He cleared his throat and met Konoe's gaze with a steady one of his own. "It will be to our benefit, chief. The cost reduction will give us more leeway in other areas, and the average number of cases in the Sixth block is far from enough to hinder my regular work. I will handle both, for the time being."

Konoe gave a small wince. His shoulders slumped as he looked away. "Tatsumi... He's not coming back."

Tatsumi smashed down on the urge to argue that. "I will be grateful for your quick consideration of my request, so as to avoid any possible backlog."

"Fine, fine." Konoe threw up his hands and shook his head. "I'll see what I can do."

The Shadow Master regarded him with a cool, polite look. "Thank you," he said.

003 chirped behind his ear.

-

When Konoe closed the door, Tatsumi felt himself deflate as he relaxed his tense muscles and drew a deep breath. He looked around. The spacious laboratory had always made him feel strangely out of place; he could not decide whether it had something to do with its size, and his mind subconsciously calculating the number of offices that could be created in its stead, or with something else entirely. Perhaps it was about the scent that he remembered lingering in the air; eerily familiar, present every time he had visited that place, yet absent now that Watari was gone. As though ages had passed and he failed to notice, and the place had already forgotten the hand that had given it shape.

Tatsumi shivered. Watari was not gone, he reminded himself, displeased at how that thought, planted by Konoe's words, was making itself comfortable in his mind. He's just away, and he will be back, he thought. He will be. Perhaps not anytime soon, but eventually...

"Right?" he asked nobody in particular, absently rubbing the fingers of one hand together.

A soft hoot reminded him 003 was still there, attempting to form a makeshift nest on his shoulder. Tatsumi reached out his hand and waited, faintly curious whether the owl would move on her own if he did not try to force her.

She hopped onto his hand, shrugging a bit as she landed on his open palm. Tatsumi watched her for a while, with a ridiculous little voice in the dark recess of his mind that argued whether the bird was indeed thinking something in her little head. Strange, how those huge eyes seemed to pierce through him, how the owl rubbed herself against his fingers when he half-closed his hand around her. As though she could sense something familiar in Tatsumi's scent.

He glanced around, having decided that the best he could do was to leave an open window so that the bird would not stay locked in the lab after he left. But as he spotted one of the long, wall-length windows upstairs already open, he resolved to just leave the owl be to do whatever she saw fit.

He walked out, feeling uncharacteristically numb. 003 had shown no interest in following him, much to his relief. A quick look at his wristwatch told him the lunch break had ended a few minutes before and he should not have lingered, needlessly, for so long. He made his way back down the corridor in sure, measured strides, trying to think of nothing except the tasks he had assigned himself to accomplish during the remaining office hours that day.

-

The fax was halfway through producing a message when he entered his office. Tatsumi rounded his desk and sat in the chair, waiting for the machine to complete the printing. He suspected a new case; it had been rather quiet in that regard in the past few weeks. He retrieved the paper and adjusted his glasses.

The message printed there made him hold his breath.

_By request of Enma DaiOh-sama, Tatsumi Seiichirou-san is to be present in the main courtroom immediately. _

Tatsumi swallowed thickly. It had been long since Enma DaiOh had last expressed any interest in seeing him personally. The current circumstances and the timing left him with miniscule traces of sweat on his forehead and a painful knot in his stomach. The paper in his hand shook slightly when he looked at it again.

The main courtroom. Tatsumi shrugged. Employed by the Lord of Meifu, intimidation served as a powerful tool that hardly ever failed to have the desired effect on most people subjected to it. Tatsumi himself was no exception to that, much as he was loath to admit it. He'd had more than one chance to witness the sheer power Enma wielded and he knew; beneath the cold, distant shell of the human form the god habitually assumed, there boiled fiery nature unrivaled by that of another.

His body felt heavy when he rose from his chair, straightening to his full height and smoothing out his brown suit on the way out of the office. Intimidation might have worked in Enma's hands, but Tatsumi had learned to keep his response to it contained beneath his own professional front. Yet, every step closer to the meeting place left him more tense and a little more out of breath. He remembered Watari's warning and prayed silently, to himself, that the reason he had been summoned had nothing to do with the conversation he'd had with his partner, nor with the things that had been said.

The guards were present at their posts by the door; all four of them, the first indication that at least one of the Ten Judges was inside. Tatsumi announced himself and handed the fax to one of them, patiently waiting as the man confirmed the orders in his computer terminal. When the large, ornate door opened at last and the men stepped aside to let him in, Tatsumi had managed to regain a considerable measure of calm.

He traced the length of the room with calm eyes, somewhat relieved by the fact that there seemed to be nobody there. At least, if worst came to worst, his eventual failure would have no unnecessary witnesses. He had waved off the idea of soothing his nerves with futile attempts at convincing himself that the matters had not grown nearly as serious as he made them out to be. If he were to walk into the fire, he would rather walk into it well-prepared to burn.

"It pleases me to see you retain punctuality as one of your best traits."

Tatsumi turned and looked up. The black-clad figure of Enma stood proudly at the highest judicial bench, watching him, no doubt since he had stepped through the door.

"Enma DaiOh-sama," he greeted the god in a calm, polite voice, inclining his head in a respectful bow as he did so.

"It is the decrease in your other values that ceases to be amusing."

The scornful tone of those words washed over him like a wave of sudden heat from the fire he sensed even at a distance; it radiated alongside Enma's powerful presence across the room. Tatsumi lifted his head, yet he kept his eyes low, knowing all too well that any response to what he had just heard would not benefit him at all.

"Come closer," Enma said, stepping down from the bench. "Let me look at you. I must make sure I can still recognize the one in whom I once invested so much. Tatsumi Seiichirou."

Tatsumi obeyed; he glanced briefly at the god, whose outstretched hand pointed at the podium in front of the judges' site. His legs felt leaden as he walked over to it and stepped up to take his place. It had been decades since he had last stood there; yet even then, he could not recall feeling such amount of dread.

Enma descended slowly halfway down the wide, carpeted stairs, stopping only to spare Tatsumi another critical look.

"Do you know why you are here?" he asked.

For one of at least ten reasons I can think of, Tatsumi thought to himself. He looked up again, careful to keep his face inscrutable, so as not to leave any trace of the impression of arrogance in the way he regarded the god.

"I have expressed interest in succeeding my recently transferred partner, Watari Yutaka, as the guardian for Area Six," he said, although with little faith Enma wanted to discuss that particular matter. But, it seemed like a fairly neutral ground to start from, since he could not stay silent forever.

The god sneered. "Indeed, you have. Does the office work fail to satisfy your ambition?"

Tatsumi held Enma's semi-amused stare. "On the contrary. However, I firmly believe that, at present, it is needless to employ another guardian, since I am willing and ready to act as Watari-san's replacement, for as long as necessary."

Enma took a few more leisurely steps towards the podium, keeping Tatsumi's eyes locked in a long battle of wills all the while. "For years to come, you mean," he stated matter-of-factly. "Watari might not have returned to his former position as the Head Researcher of The Five Generals, but I assure you that his transfer was permanent."

An involuntary shudder passed through him; momentary darkness rose up and swept through his vision. The Head Researcher? Ice-cold chill of half-understanding, half-dread flickered across his flesh.

"Ah, correct. He conveniently withheld that part of the story from you," Enma said, one step closer to Tatsumi with every slowly uttered word. "He has a truly extraordinary talent for juggling the facts to make them suit his purpose, doesn't he?"

Tatsumi's thoughts whirled. He cast his might back to the previous night, racing frantically through everything Watari had said. He was hoping he had missed something before, perhaps forgotten something and Enma's words were just a ploy to catch him unawares.

"He left you with such a burden." The final step brought Enma face to face with the fretful Shadow Master. "What will you do?"

The revelations and the proximity combined sent ripples of nauseating fear through his stomach. Tatsumi fixed his gaze ahead, on some distant spot far past the god. The question sank into his consciousness, yet, even as the seconds rolled past, it remained unanswered in his mind.

Enma leaned against the podium, his tall silhouette looming over Tatsumi's shorter frame. "Say a word, and I'll know it," he said in a deliberate, vicious-sounding whisper. "Let it slip to any one of them and you will watch them go, one by one, knowing it was your own fault."

Forcing himself to keep breathing, Tatsumi turned a reluctant gaze back to Enma's face. Meeting the god's black eyes felt, to him, like staring into a bottomless well of death. It promised suffering, as had the threat. He kept his composure, but barely.

Expectation hung in the air; the god's silence demanded an answer and Tatsumi felt hard-pressed to give it. His dry mouth could hardly form the words. "I will not speak of it," he said, and he hated himself with a passion the second his own voice echoed through the courtroom. He tried to make it loud enough to ensure Enma would not order him to speak them again.

"Should your word suffice?" The god reached out and lifted Tatsumi's chin with his finger. "You are made of weakness. You once assured me you were ready to pay the price for the power you wield. You swore never to disappoint me. Consider your pledge to me grossly out of shape."

Tatsumi swallowed hard and shivered; he couldn't help it. His legs felt weak in the knees. Enma's hand hovered unbearably long around his neck; a gesture that reminded him that his power would prove far from sufficient, should the god's patience run out and he chose to dispose of him, to the warning of others.

"I apologize, DaiOh-sama," he said, glad to regain his breath as Enma removed his hand.

"Nonsense. I can smell that bitter anger boiling the blood in your veins. You let that pathetic little infatuation with Watari cloud your better judgment. Such an error is _unthinkable _for a Kagetsukai you make yourself out to be. That is not what I taught you."

Enma's words drew a sharp bolt of pain through Tatsumi's heart. "I assure you that--"

"Hold your tongue, Shinigami. I don't need to hear another vain excuse." Enma waved a dismissive hand and stepped back. "You can have your partner's job, if you insist. But heed my words: err again, and you will pay."

He turned away from Tatsumi who stood, shock-stricken, holding himself up only by the sheer force of will. The door swung open behind him, startling him, threatening to shatter the remnants of his control.

"This meeting is over."

-

Tatsumi left the courtroom on shaking legs. He ignored the guards who called after him to sign for the audience, set on walking while he still had the strength and the drive to keep moving his feet. Cold and collected on the outside, inside he was shaking; the pounding of his heart too rapid, the rush of blood too loud in his ears. He cared little for where he was headed, until the numbness of shock and apprehension began to disperse.

It gave way to rage.

He stormed into his office; the door shuddered as he slammed it shut with far too much force. He came to a halt in front of his desk, breathing hard, tightly clenched fists raised. The shadows lifted from the corners and swirled around him, picking up speed, sweeping a few loose sheets of paper off the desk. Tatsumi watched them coil, their whisper turning into the noise of destruction as the shadows took a solid form and cut them into shreds. With narrowed eyes, he followed the thin stripes as they fluttered and fell onto the floor, the tendrils of shadow dissipating slowly as he regained some sense of control.

He had expected nothing like what had occurred; not by any stretch of imagination, not even in the worst scenarios he had thought of. Faced with such an overwhelming storm crashing down on his head, he found himself forced to keep himself in check, and feared the moment he would fail.

How could Watari have been so careless, he thought furiously, willing the shadows down with a slowly exhaled breath. He must have known Enma could have heard, perhaps even seen, every detail of their conversation. But he had said as much, Tatsumi remembered when his thoughts cleared a little, and he shook his head at having caught himself sinking down the path of anger once more. Where could they have gone to keep their words unheard? Was there still a safe place, anywhere at all?

Drawing deep breaths, he turned his focus inwards, gradually calming his shaky nerves. It was Enma he wanted as the target of his rage, he realized, and he wondered how he had managed to retain enough common sense to keep from lashing out on the god. The long years of training had not gone into waste, after all.

Yet those words had cut through him like the sharpest shards of ice; they had fallen on a breeding ground in his mind, where Tatsumi all but lost a part of himself, while he tried to make sense of it all.

-

Konoe had heard; from Enma himself, he had every right to suspect. He stopped by Tatsumi's office not long after the Shadow Master had returned and told him to take the rest of the day off. Tatsumi refused, but as he sat at his desk and failed to muster enough focus to concentrate on the tasks at hand, he gathered a handful of papers and vanished quietly, avoiding the others who were still around.

The previous night seemed so distant when he walked into his house again. As though it had happened in another century and, since morning when he had last been there, everything had taken yet another turn. He left the papers he had brought with him at the door, for now, too distracted to think of taking proper care of them. He leaned back, painfully tense shoulders braced against the wall, and took off his glasses as his eyes slid shut.

_You let that pathetic infatuation with Watari cloud your judgment._

Tatsumi swept a shaking hand across his face. Was that so? Infatuation. That word did not sit well with him at all.

He pulled himself up and made his way to the living room before his thoughts could trail off into too dark a place in his mind. He had to think, had to parse the facts and decide upon his next move, but not like that. He had already exceeded his limit of brash decisions for at least ten years.

He sank back onto his couch and let his head roll to the side. Weariness had crept up on him, tension slowly letting go as he breathed lighter air again – away from EnmaCho, from the stress of the past few days.

He reached for the blanket - folded neatly by Watari's hand, he knew - and pulled at it to wrap it around himself. He frowned; something soft slipped between his fingers and he felt around between the folds to see what it could have been. As he rose and brought it up to take a closer look, he let out a quiet groan.

Watari's silk ribbon looked so _red _against his hand.


	11. Chapter Ten

The music:  
Deftones - _Passenger_  
Silverchair - _Paint Pastel Princess_  
Lesiem - _Humilitas_

-  


* * *

- 

**Against the Wind**  
Chapter Ten

-

"KinU, GyokuTo. This time, do it right."

Watari strained to see past the blackness that clouded his vision. _I hope the last night was a pleasant treat. _You son of a bitch, he thought furiously, yet he kept his composure. Enma's content gaze swept past him in a brief look, barely brushing against him, just before the god turned on his heel and started towards the main lab area.

Tategami waved an impatient hand in front of Watari's face. "Come on. We have work to do. You'll need to catch up first."

Watari's eyes narrowed slightly before he managed to clear his mind of the overload of murderous thoughts. A pleasant treat, indeed. He felt as though those simple words, delivered in a light, conversational tone, no less, had severed a hair-thin thread that still connected him with what he had left behind – with Tatsumi – and he had lost his hold on the foundation of his hope.

He pulled himself out of his thoughts by force, unwilling to face his former – and current, from the looks of it – partner again. But he'd had decades of practice in playing his role. "I'm coming," he said evenly, meeting Tategami's eyes. He watched her from under thick lashes as she passed by him, shaking her head, a half-smirk on her lips.

_A pleasant treat._ Watari smashed the little voice in his mind ruthlessly when it refused to stay silent. Did you watch? He caught himself asking as he drew a deep breath and followed Tategami and Enma in long strides to level with them, his steps as sure as his weak knees allowed. Or perhaps it was just another--

"--virtual simulation. Let me show you."

Watari's head whipped around. It took him half a second to realize that the words he had just overheard had not been any sort of response to his thoughts, nor had they been directed at him, to begin with. He stopped long enough to locate the speaker; a dark-haired woman he could not remember seeing before. Bent over one of the several computer monitors in the lab as he turned, she flung her lab coat out of the way and perched herself down on the seat. She looked busy, apparently explaining something to a young-looking man in the chair next to her.

Watari frowned. With the absence of her face in his memory – she could have been thirty, give or take a few years, and probably not dead long enough to have been there in his time – he tried to place the voice, but it did not sound familiar, either. He turned his attention back to the matters at hand. It would have been naïve to think any of his former colleagues were in fact still around.

Except that one of them was, and she stood at Enma's left side as Watari caught up with the two. She regarded him with the same, faintly contemptuous look, the reason for which he had yet to discern. Tategami Yukiko. He had been sure she was gone. By all rights, she should have been. That was what he had been told. Another lie, he mused.

"I do not suppose I need to remind you that certain rules, which I'm sure you are familiar with, do apply," Enma said, turning to measure Watari from head to toe. "Before you ask, you are not to contact _anybody _from your previous office. Every detail regarding the Project is meant to remain within this laboratory." Enma smirked. "This includes you, as well."

Watari arched his brow. So, I'm a 'work detail' now? He almost asked, but he found such questions rather pointless. He had a fairly good idea about the character of his work from now on. "Do I get a place to stay here, then?"

"You will stay in one of the staff rooms inside the facility. Tategami will take you there."

Watari glanced at the woman. She kept her face unreadable now and she nodded at Enma's words.

"I don't think you will need a place of your own for long, though," Enma added after a short pause. "For now, however, consider your accommodations taken care of."

His mouth felt dry as Watari parsed the new information and set it against his own suspicions. At least this time, he mused, Enma had laid out all the cards on the table right away. The royal flush, no less, said that small smile of satisfaction on the god's lips.

"As for your contract, we shall waste no time on formalities which are long completed. Your original agreement retains validity."

Sure it does, Watari thought sourly as he inclined his head in acknowledgment. You would not let me forget about it, would you?

"If you have any questions, your partner will take care of them." Enma shifted his feet and unfolded his arms, indicating that he intended to leave their company. Tategami stepped aside to give him more room to pass.

"I will return shortly to monitor the preparations. I cannot stress enough the importance of our success this time. However, I must leave you now," he said, locking his eyes on Watari's for a short moment. "I have an appointment with an accountant."

Watari held that gaze, unblinking; he put an extra effort into ignoring the painful knot in his stomach. Tatsumi, he thought. Keep your filthy hands away from Tatsumi.

He turned and followed Enma on his way out of the lab. Some rules had changed, obviously. He remembered how everyone in the Headquarters, Watari himself included, used to pause their work as Enma entered or left. Now, though, the other scientists – all several of them that he could see from his current spot – had not so much as raised their heads.

The dark-haired woman was still occupying the chair next to her younger colleague, gesticulating vividly to aid her explanation. A virtual simulation, she had said. Curious, that, Watari thought to himself.

He crossed his arms and looked around. The place had undergone a complete overhaul, equipment-wise, since he had last seen it. The amount of newest technology tickled something in his mind. Under any other circumstances, he would have been more than looking forward to working there.

"Hey," Tategami called out to him, irritated. "Would you drop that absent-minded attitude?"

Watari rolled his eyes. "Would you drop that tone? It doesn't suit you."

She let out a derisive snort. "You would know." Turning to the workstation behind her, she tapped at a couple of keys, her eyes shifting between the two displays above. "You log in with your own name the first time," she said, not looking at Watari, now focused on the monitor in front of her. "This will generate a new set of access codes. You won't actually need them, though, it's just something the procedure requires you to do. They're auto-saved in your chip anyway. Inside the lab, Mother identifies us by comparing our unique patterns with her database. If it matches, you're in. If it doesn't, you're fucked."

Watari noted the change, quite significant in comparison with the old security system. He nodded. "And outside?"

"That's none of your concern. You're not going anywhere." She turned her head to meet Watari's gaze, a displeased noise slipping through her lips at his dubious countenance. "I'm dead serious, Watari."

"I'm tempted to argue the latter," he said, watching her out of the corner of his eye. He moved to half-sit on the desk and crossed his ankles. "But if you think I'll be your pushover, you're also dead wrong."

Tategami laughed. She straightened herself from her lean. "No? And what do you think you have been for the past thirty years?"

Eyes narrowed, Watari stood up as well and came face to face with the woman, just a breath away. "Your point?"

"My point, Watari, is that you are a tool. As am I, to be more precise, but the difference between us is that I have nothing to lose and, for me, this is much better than what you left me with."

He felt his heart pounding furiously against his ribs, but the surge of cold anger turned his face to stone. He opened his mouth, a retort ready to throw back at her, but Tategami cut in between his short breaths.

"Why do you think Enma has let you run loose for so long? That's the only reason you're still here. You made a perfect remote tool for Mother, for as long as it sufficed. You're here, right now, because it's time to stop playing and start doing what we should have done a long time ago."

Watari's mind raced across her words and his heart sank. It was beginning to make some twisted sort of sense. A remote connection between Mother and himself could have been open for years. He did not suppose he'd had a reasonable chance to notice, had they wanted to keep him unaware. Then again...

"Ah, you're finally catching up, aren't you," Tategami said, answering the involuntary, shocked look Watari knew was on his face.

A tool. All this time.

"Good for you, though. You won't need to go through the updates. But if you think you can just walk out of here, forget it. You heard Enma-sama's words – you're not supposed to leave the facility. You're not the Head Researcher anymore. Follow orders and remember your place."

Watari swallowed down the urge to argue with her. Getting out of the lab was not very high on his priority list; not at the moment, anyway. If he needed to do that later, he could probably find a way.

"While we're on that topic," he said instead, "who's in charge right now?"

"That would be me."

Watari turned around. The brown-haired woman he'd watched before bowed her head and gave him a bright smile. She looked short, now that he measured her at not much of a distance, and wore casual clothes, her lab coat draped over her left arm.

She extended her hand. "Long time, Watari-san."

Watari frowned. He searched her dark eyes, digging into his memory at the same time, but it returned nothing. He took the offered hand and shook it. "Do I know you?" he asked.

"You should," she said. "You were in my organic chemistry lab in 1976. My name is Touya Kagami."

Rubbing the back of his head with his right hand, Watari ran a mental search for the name. In 1976, he had started his second degree in chemistry, at the Kyoto University, indeed. But he would have remembered her; he seldom forgot any of the faces he had seen before.

"I'm sorry, I don't think I remember you," he said, a little embarrassed at such a memory lapse and half-suspicious of it being yet another trick. "Are you sure, though? Maybe you were in another group--"

"Quite sure." Touya chuckled, flipping the lab coat she had held haphazardly over her shoulder. "I taught it. And you're quite hard to forget."

Disconcerted, Watari nodded. He returned the smile she had given him, but he did not pull his eyes off her for a longer while. He watched carefully for any signs of uncomfortable tension in her posture, in her face; for anything indicating a lie. But Touya had either perfected the art of convincing acting, or she was telling the truth.

Tategami coughed into her hand. "This reunion after long years is very touching," she said pointedly, "but we're wasting time." She tapped her wristwatch with her finger. "Enma-sama is expecting results, in _this _century, preferably, and we're--"

"I appreciate the reminder, Tategami-san," Touya cut in, "but I'm long overdue for my lunch break. If you'll excuse me," she said cheerfully and gave a small bow of her head, tucking her hands into the pockets of her pants. "I'll be back in half an hour. If you're so kind to show Watari-san where he will be staying?"

Tategami scowled, but she kept her silence under the other's sharp look. "Of course," she said in a cold voice.

Watari raised an eyebrow at their exchange. Tension had been an issue between the Five Generals ever since he had first walked into that laboratory thirty years before; despite the outside appearance of agreement and cooperation, it had always been there, anyway. Those two, he noticed from the second Touya Kagami had joined their company, held a definite dislike for one another.

Thinking something about rocks and hard places, Watari shrugged it off, for now. The air felt heavy and thick enough.

Tategami muttered under her breath in the general direction of the door where the Head Researcher had vanished. "The staff rooms are there," she said, pointing her hand towards a large door to her left. "Down the hall, the fourth one is yours. You'll find a computer there, and you can use any of these here, but don't get carried away." She half-turned, her eyes flashing a dangerous cold. "Everything you do is monitored. Try anything and I'll know it."

That figured. Watari shrugged. "What's with that attitude?" he asked, unfazed by her attempt at threatening him.

"Excuse me?"

"You and Touya. You've never liked authority, but--"

"She thinks far too much of herself," Tategami interrupted angrily. "Her position aside, which is a whole different story, she thinks I should worship the ground she walks on, just because she hooked the rest of me up to Mother and actually managed to pull me out of coma."

Watari gave her a questioning look. _GyokuTo failed, _Watari remembered the words crashing down on him as though he had heard them yesterday. Twenty five years since he had left had gone by in a flash. _Mother rejected her as an intruder. The physical damage exceeded her healing abilities. _Did it? Watari thought again, reassigning himself to the task of studying the woman at his side. She bore no visible signs of anything he remembered being told.

"What?" Tategami tilted her head, obviously displeased with having a pair of amber eyes fixed on her for so long. She took a few slow steps away from Watari. "You didn't know? I've got _you _to thank for the eighteen years of being a pile of meat, _genius._"

Watari shook his head. He recalled her face through a blurry mist wrapped around his memory; two nights before, in the darkness of the halls of the JuuOhCho, she had come to him. He made a mental note to ask about that later, even though the very thought of that night left him with a faint nausea gnawing at his stomach.

"You've told me as much before," he said. "So have the others, in fact," he added as he looked at her closely again. "Back then. But I think I'm missing something here. We both went in. We both failed."

"I read the reports, Watari, so keep your excuses to yourself," she said, facing him. "The recognition program at the entry gate had holes the size of Tokyo. And we know whose program that was, don't we?"

"Mine," Watari said, shrugging his shoulders. "And it wasn't bugged."

Tategami cast him a dark look. "Like from here to America."

"It wasn't." Against his better judgment, Watari followed the woman as she moved to walk away from the conversation. "I had a copy of it. I checked it back and forth more times than I care to remember. It was clean. Whatever messed up the test, it wasn't that."

"Vain excuses," Tategami shot back in a singsong voice, not bothering to look. "It's all there, in the reports. See for yourself. You screwed up, end of story."

"Tategami." Watari stopped. She stopped as well, but she did not turn. He ignored that. "If you know everything so well, you also know I wasn't told anything before I left. Talk to me. What the hell happened here?"

"I also know you didn't have to be told anything, because you stole the reports. And you got creative in getting rid of Hinote. And your little virus corrupted every piece of data it could to knock Mother down."

Watari swallowed thickly. He suspected she would have known about those; not that he could have done anything about it. Reports had been written, and people liked to talk. His spectacular leaving must have been the hot topic for years.

"I always knew you weren't smart enough to do something like that right, though," Tategami added, irony dripping from her words.

But I did, he thought. There was nothing left. Then he remembered her words, almost stumbling under a sudden wave of sickly heat. _You made a perfect remote tool for Mother. _

"They got it back," he whispered, sweeping a trembling hand across his face. _Or it never happened to begin with. _

Tategami's quiet chuckling stifled that thought before Watari recovered enough to do that himself.

"Of course they did. The same night, according to the report. You never learned, Watari. Arrogance such as yours makes you so easy to manipulate. You ran off, happy that you won. It never crossed your mind that three months, when you were out, had been long enough for them to prepare for that?"

It did, he thought. Only with the absence of the relevant data, it would not have worked. Watari closed his eyes. His head was spinning. "All right," he said at last. "Assuming what you say is true, then why wait twenty five years? If you didn't have to recreate anything, what took so long?"

Tategami swept her hair out of her face and made a wide gesture around her with her hand. "Technology isn't created in a day. What we did twenty five years ago, and what we can do now, is like heaven and earth. You're the only relict from the past, with your terminal being barely enough to make a connection. But that will soon be fixed."

Watari arched an eyebrow. "Meaning?"

"Come on, Watari, spare me that innocent, clueless attitude," she huffed, glancing at her wristwatch. "Your hardware is as old as dust. You'll get your new toys when Touya comes back."

They were not wasting time, Watari mused with a soundless sigh. He had taken the plunge. Now it's sink or swim. "Fine," he said. "Let's see what you've got."

He caught his curious streak running rampant across his thoughts, but self deprecation in that regard made no sense at all. If he had to be there, if the ways he had chosen decades ago had led him back to where he had started from, he could at least see where they led from here.

Tategami smirked. "Curiosity is a weakness," she said.

Watari mirrored her expression, half-aware that he was taking her up on a challenge, the rules of which had not yet been stated. "It's the mother of progress," he said. "Though, maybe it's a weakness, too. Same as arrogance."

"Yours, or mine?" Tategami walked back and stood in front of him, confirming the challenge with a pointed stare fixed upon Watari's face.

He tipped his head. "That's yet to be seen."

She glanced at him with narrowed eyes, letting the silence seal the moment before she checked the time again. "You have fifteen minutes. Take a look around. If you need anything from your place, have someone fetch it. Though, most of it is already here."

Watari grumbled at the annoying practice of entering people's houses without their consent that Enma seemed particularly fond of, but he nodded and looked away, around the lab, over his shoulder at the exit.

"All right," he said and started on his way towards the staff rooms.  
-

The room was spartan. Roughly five square meters, enough to fit a futon, a small closet, and a desk. Watari flipped the light switch by the door and glanced around. The first thing that struck him was the permanent absence of daylight. Located underground, the entire facility had not so much as one window overlooking the outside world. The room that would be his, from now on, lacked them as well. Watari sighed.

The computer on the desk was a laptop. He perched himself down on the chair and turned it on. He thought back to the meeting with Touya, unsettled once again at the lack of any kind of memory of her. He would have remembered, he thought. But guessing the reasons why she would have lied was beyond him.

Mother's database turned out to be accessible through his computer, already connected to the network as Watari logged in. He typed in the name and leaned back in the chair, stretching as he waited for the machine to complete the search. Not that he would discover any traces of conspiracy, if one was at work, but he was curious who the new Head Researcher was, where she had come from.

The only results were a generic personal file, with a picture and basic information. Touya Kagami, born in Kyoto in 1945, was a neuroscientist with doctorates in supramolecular chemistry and neurophysiology, and specialized in neuroengineering. Watari whistled. Computational neuroscience was a rather extensive field; Touya seemed to have had a busy life before she died, at the age of thirty seven, he read further in the file. She had started her job at the JuuOhCho's Science Department in 1982, soon after her death.

Watari frowned. He had left the Five Generals the same year. What a coincidence, he thought sourly. Only not.

Any further information regarding Touya's life or death came up as undisclosed, which Watari knew meant as much as that he would need higher clearance to access it. But the brief overview of her career listed her as an assistant to one professor Sugitani Hiroshi, whom Watari remembered indeed, though vaguely, as one of his teachers. She might have told the truth; according to her file, anyway.

Watari took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes, wondering to what extent he should trust the information he had read. Tategami had been right; with so much time to make sure everything would go as planned, they could have prepared for every one of his questions and throw ready answers into his hands. They would match the carefully crafted picture, to put his suspicions back to sleep.

But he did not have to trust it, he thought; or them, for that matter. So he closed the file, committing the information to his memory with a grain of salt in between the lines.

He looked up and ahead, fixing a blank look at the white wall for a longer while. Artificial light and recycled air. He had never realized how much it could bother him, until he ended up with it as the only option. Outside, he knew, the sun shone through the thick branches of the sakura trees, and his old friends would sit at the tables and talk over tea. Terazuma would smoke and Tatsumi would scowl at him for a pointless waste of money. Bon would ignore Tsuzuki's excitement over dessert and hide himself behind a book. Wakaba would--

Watari shook his head. They would move on, and so would he, and thinking such thoughts wasn't helping him with that at all.

He pondered looking up Tategami's file as well, but he gave up on that idea, remembering her words that warned him against stepping out of line. He did not suppose she had made empty threats. Monitoring him, especially in there and while he moved inside the network, was an easy task. She would be on his case again, and Watari would rather put such arguments off, at least until he made sure he could stand his ground.

The clock on the computer read three minutes to two. He rose from the chair and stretched again, breathing deeply to compose himself. He wrapped his arms around himself and closed his eyes. _A pleasant treat, _Enma's voice assaulted him anew. No, he thought, redrawing the image of Tatsumi in his mind. It would have to be cheap to have been just a 'treat'.  
-

Touya had returned from her lunch break by the time Watari reappeared in the main lab. She looked up from the papers she had been reading and gave a small nod, beckoning him to join her with a wave of her hand.

Watari had fought a short episode of nauseating fear before he left his room to come here. Now, as he crossed the distance between himself and the Head Researcher, he still felt the minute trembling of his hands. So he slid them into the pockets of his jeans and kept them there until he joined Touya by her desk. He gave his head a small shake to let his loose hair partly hide his face.

"There you are," Touya greeted him cheerfully. She picked up a folder from the desk behind her back and shoved it into Watari's hands, together with the papers she had been reading.

"I thought you'd like to read up on the specifics," she said. "This is the new memory chip. Yours would be fine if we were working locally. But even the predicted amount of data per second you're supposed to start from is too extensive, it wouldn't handle that. And we don't want to hurt you."

Watari nodded. "Do I get a local test run before it goes live?" he asked lightly, but his focus went into suppressing a shudder. Déjà vu, he thought.

"Sure you do." Touya grinned and patted him on the shoulder. "We need to implant these first, though." She produced a small test tube from one of her pockets and gave it a shake. "There's five of them, about six microns worth of silicon to go with the chip you already have. They should do the trick without replacing the entire terminal." She took a slightly deeper breath. "That's the least invasive upgrade method I could think of."

Watari gave her a wry smile. That didn't sound very pleasant at all. "How does it work?" he asked. He tucked the papers under one arm and took the small tube from Touya's hand. He brought it up to take a closer look. Apart from the transparent liquid half-filling the glass, physiological salt solution, more likely than not, it looked empty.

"It goes into the epidural space around your spine cord," Touya explained. "The signal to and from your chip is carried by the electrical impulses – those emit their own as well and it's strong enough to pass through the meninges. I'll inject it into your lower back area. It will take them longer to establish the connection, but I don't want to risk a spine injury anywhere higher. It would take you a while to recover from that."

"Fine with me," Watari agreed, though with little conviction. The idea of trusting any one of them with his body again did not sit well with him.

"Just so you know, though you probably do," Touya said, retrieving the tube from Watari's hand. "It's a foreign object; five of them, in fact, however small. The initial sensation won't be pleasant. Give yourself some time to get used to it."

"The concept of taking time has never been particularly popular around here," Watari said, his voice dry. He put the papers away and reached back to secure his hair in a loose braid.

Touya looked at him through half-closed eyes, waving a dismissive hand. "Ignore Tategami. She likes to pretend she's the center of the universe. It's a pity that's not genetic, or I would have tried to extract it from her and I bet nobody would mind."

Watari laughed, tossing the end of his braid over his shoulder. "Shame, indeed."

Touya grinned. "Come on. I'd like to get done with this before Enma comes back. He's getting impatient and I hate it when he's staring at my hands while I'm trying to work."

Following her towards what he still remembered as the infirmary, Watari chuckled inwardly at how familiar that sounded. "I wonder why," he muttered under his breath. "Some things never change."  
-

"Can I ask you something?"

Touya closed the door behind them as they entered and locked it.

Watari watched the lights blink on, absently chewing on his lower lip. He nodded. "Sure."

Touya crossed the room towards the sink. She opened the tap and began to wash her hands. "Was she like that before? Tategami, that is."

Watari sat down on one of the two hospital beds by the wall. "Well," he started, rubbing the back of his neck. "She's never been the sweet type, if that's what you mean. She's one of those people you can expect to pull any sort of stunt, and if you end up surprised, it's your own fault for having underestimated her ambitious nature. Though, I don't remember her this bitter."

Touya reached for one of the towels that sat on a cabinet next to the sink. She nodded thoughtfully. "I guess coming back to find out you're not much of anything, after eighteen years, can do that to you," she said.

Watari frowned. "Not much of anything?"

"Ah, right, you might not know that yet." Touya picked a pair of latex gloves from a shelf in front of her and put them on. "Her body sustained critical damage during that infamous experiment, twenty five years ago. Frankly, Enma should have reincarnated her, but he insisted we saved what we could. That is, given her brain was pretty much all he cared about, there wasn't much of it."

"I wouldn't know." Watari shrugged. "She looks fine to me."

Touya stopped halfway through putting on the second glove. "That's not her body you saw," she said quietly. "Her body, or whatever is left of it, is permanently connected to Mother. What you see is her holographic projection of herself. You're familiar with that technology, yourself."

Watari's mouth hung slightly open. He stared at Touya for a moment, then blinked back the initial shock. Tategami's bitterness, the way she had said that her current state was better than before, and how she, too, was just a tool – it suddenly made sense.

"How come I survived, if she didn't?" he said at last, half to himself, half to Touya, who walked over to where he sat and stood in front of him.

She leaned forward, hands on her thighs, leveling her face with Watari's. "Not here," she whispered. Then she straightened herself. "It won't take long," she said in a much louder voice. "Remove your sweater and lie down."

Watari frowned. The room was probably monitored, just as the others, but he did not like the strange sense of secrecy that suddenly filled the air. He took off his pullover and reached to undo the zipper on his back.

Touya gave him an amused look. "A bodysuit?" She chuckled. "Here, let me help you. Gods, I've always regretted not having lived to see more of the 80's."

Watari smiled, shaking his head. He half-turned and swept his hair out of the way. "So have I."

"Lie on your left side," Touya instructed him. "Draw up your knees and tuck your chin." She placed her hand on his shoulder and gently pushed him down. "And for gods' sake, relax a bit. You're so stiff you look like you're about to break."

Watari did as she said, though the relaxation part was much harder to carry out. The last time he had been in that infirmary, he had woken up after ninety seven days of coma, just to find out that everything around him – and a lot inside him – had changed. It did not make repose an easy task.

"I'll inject a bit of a local anesthetic into the skin to lessen the pain. You'll feel it anyway, but it shouldn't hurt much after this."

Watari cringed inwardly at the sensation of Touya's gloved fingers feeling for the right spot on his back. The cold of the antiseptic she used to clean it, and the sting of a small needle, had subsided quickly. He wondered if any of the things he would have to do had any chance of resulting in a replay of the failure from quarter of a century ago. He suspected they did, though it was a bit too late for second thoughts.

"Give it a minute or two. When the skin is numb, I'll give you the proper injection." Touya pinched the spot. "Just make sure you don't move. I'll make it quick. Feel anything?"

Watari took a deep breath. "Nope."

"Good. Give me a moment."

Watari closed his eyes. He listened to the sound of Touya's footsteps against the tiled floor, trying to keep his breathing even to stay calm. The smell of antiseptics and the knowledge of where he was triggered memories he would have rather kept at bay. And the realization that he no longer had a way back crashed down on him hard. For a moment, the darkness under his eyelids felt like the only safe place he knew, and the quickening of his heartbeat urged him to get up and run.

But he knew; wherever he went, it would not be far enough. So he clenched his fists and gave himself a mental punch.

Behind him, Touya was putting on a fresh pair of latex gloves. "You all right?"

Watari let out a deep sigh. "Yes."

"Good," she said. "Let's get on with it."

He kept his eyes closed against the dull sensation of something breaking into his body by force. Wincing, he let out a quiet hiss as the needle struck the target and he tried hard not to move, but he was not sure he succeeded.

"Good... good." Touya's voice had a calm, soothing tone to it. "I need about ten seconds to get this in, and we're done. Think you can do it?"

Lacking permission to move, Watari stopped himself from shaking his head. "I'm not a kid, you know?"

"You sure? You look young." There was a grin behind these words, he could hear it.

"Ye-es! Oh, gods," he almost choked on the words as a sudden fire erupted somewhere in his lower back. "Sorry," he breathed.

"That's fine," Touya said lightly, pressing something cold to the spot where the needle had gone in. "I'm done, anyway."

Involuntarily, Watari shuddered. He felt warmth spreading through his body; his heart rate went through the roof and he breathed deeply to force it back down. Brushing his hand across his forehead, he propped himself up on the opposite elbow and turned his head.

Touya stood above him, removing her gloves. "Give it three to five hours to establish the connection. The we'll test it. I'm not expecting any major problems, though."

Watari nodded. He moved to sit up. Dizziness washed over him and he caught the edge of the bed to steady himself. The warm sensation kept spreading through him; he blinked, suddenly aware of how tired he felt.

Touya helped him back into his clothes. Watari's mouth was dry as he swallowed to tame the sick feeling in his stomach. He felt Touya's hands on his arms as his eyes slid shut; he could not force himself to keep them open any longer.

"Sleep, now," he heard her quiet voice behind his ear as she laid him back down on the bed. Covered with something warm and heavy, Watari did not care enough to shrug off the hand that rested lightly on his head.

--

"You should _not _have gone so far."

"Really. Look who's talking."

Woken by the sound of hushed whispers behind him, Watari kept his eyes closed, waiting for his focus to return. He felt a little numb, and still warm; the dull pain in his back, though there, was not too bothersome.

"You pushed him too hard."

He recognized Touya's voice; the other one – now a stifled chuckling – belonged to Tategami.

"Come now. Enma liked it. It's a tough job to break him, anyway."

"You please Enma out of spite, don't you?" Muffled steps made the words all but inaudible. "I still don't think it was necessary to go so far. He didn't know you were still here. If you keep driving him insane like this, he'll snap."

"Too bad."

Watari clenched his teeth, forcing his eyes open as the words sank in. Back to full consciousness, he willed himself to lie motionless, and listened.

"Look, _chief. _I might have to hear your opinion, but I don't have to agree with it. And I don't."

"You should."

"Not really. I have--"

Tategami broke off as the door opened and someone walked in. Feet shuffled against the floor.

"DaiOh-sama."

Watari tensed. He closed his eyes.

"You were right," Enma said. "He did talk to the secretary. I am not sure how much he told him, but probably more than enough."

Tategami let out a triumphant snort. "I knew it."

Watari's heart skipped a beat. So they couldn't listen in on his conversation with Tatsumi, back in Chijou. Not without him. Tategami herself could not have done it, but she seemed to have done a damn good job at predicting what he would do. He cursed mentally, focusing to keep his breathing even, not to give himself away.

"It doesn't matter, much. Although it makes for a useful bonus, indeed."

On the verge of shaking with anger, Watari cursed Enma out in his thoughts, time after time. He could imagine how the god had pushed Tatsumi, with his sneaky way with words he used to gain the information he was after. Had he threatened Tatsumi? He very well might have, Watari knew; certainly not above that, Enma played his cards with a sure hand.

And even his current 'partner' did not play for his team. Watari could hardly push himself to even think of Tategami that way.

"I want him inside Mother as soon as he wakes up."

"With all due respect, DaiOh-sama, he might--"

"That's an order." Enma cut Touya off in a cold voice. Footsteps, most likely his, sounded in the suddenly too quiet room.

"GyokuTo should also return to her place."

"Yes, Enma-sama," Tategami gave a terse reply. She walked towards the door.

As both of them left and the door closed behind them, Watari heard Touya let out a heavy sigh. He opened his eyes and turned to lie on his back. He squinted to glance at her; perched on the edge of a chair, she held her hand pressed against her eyes. Watari reached behind, feeling around the pillow until he found his glasses. He put them on.

Touya looked up. "Hey, you're awake," she said somewhat tiredly. "You heard, didn't you?"

He nodded. He had to wonder, what business that woman had to argue his case. Last time he checked, it was anything but safe a thing to do, around those people in particular.

He moved to sit up, wincing at the sudden pulsation of pain in his temples. "What did you give me?" he asked.

Touya stood and walked over to the bed. "Lie down," she said in a calm voice. "The headache will pass. The needle might have nicked the covering of the spinal cord. And I gave you mild sedatives."

Falling back against the bed, Watari cursed under his breath. "What for?"

"The chips are microscopic, but they move around highly sensitized nerves. Each time one of them strikes a nerve, it causes pain." She shrugged. "I tested it on myself, so trust me on this."

Watari gave her an irritated look. "You could have told me," he said.

"You've just slept through most of the relocating phase, so no need to get angry. I didn't tell you because you're under enough stress as it is, that's all."

"What time is it?" he asked.

Touya glanced at her watch. "Seven thirty."

Watari let his head roll to the side, away from her, and slowly closed his eyes. Now that he lay down, the headache had begun to subside.

Touya dragged a chair across the room and put it next to him. "I know you don't trust me," she said as she sat down. "Quite understandable, and I'm not expecting you to do that. But believe it or not, I have no intention to harm you. I'm just doing my job, and I'm doing it to the best of my abilities."

Deep down, Watari agreed. Trust was out of question, as was anything beyond the necessary cooperation, for that matter. But she did not strike him as an ill-willed person so far.

"That's fine," he said after a longer moment of silence. "I appreciate it."

Touya let out a humorless chuckle. "You don't, and I can't blame you. But that's all right." She rose to her feet. "When you get up, do it slowly. Rapid movement will make that headache worse. I'll get you something for it."

Watari gave her a small smile. "Thanks."

"No problem," she said over her shoulder on her way out the door.  
-

Left to his own devices, Watari lay still for a few minutes, staring at nothing in particular on the white ceiling above him. Seven thirty, he thought. It would start getting dark soon. Tatsumi would leave the office and go home. He sighed. It felt as though it had been so long ago when he waited outside Tatsumi's house, though only a day had passed. Eternity like this, if he continued to count days, not months or years, seemed long beyond any stretch of imagination.

He picked himself up, slowly this time, pressing one hand to his temple to soothe the pain that had taken up residence there again. This won't be easy, he mused, and it was only the beginning. His back still hurt, though if he should believe Touya, he did not have much to complain about. He remembered pain far worse than that.

Carefully, he eased himself off the bed and waited out the moment of nausea his body welcomed the change of position with. Enma had ordered the test run tonight, he recalled; somebody would come to call him soon. He decided he would not give Tategami the pleasure of fetching him, this time.  
-

The main lab looked less crowded, now that most of the assistants had left for their respective homes. A few of them still worked on their computers; writing their daily reports, Watari guessed as he took a quick inventory of the room. Touya sat at one of the far desks, fumbling in the drawer. Tategami was nowhere in sight.

Watari crossed the lab towards the Head Researcher's desk. "I feel like I got hit by a truck," he said with a little wry smile.

Touya glanced up from her task. "That would have been a fairly small truck, all things considered."

"Thanks, I already feel better."

She grinned. "I wouldn't hook you up tonight, if it were up to me, but Enma insisted," she said, her voice serious now.

"I know." Watari nodded. "That's fine, I guess. Something about not wasting precious time, hm?"

Touya shut the drawer and stood. "Something along these lines."

"Well," he said, brushing his hair, long since not braided anymore, out of his face. "Now, or later, whatever floats his boat."

"I'm glad you agree."

Watari caught a glimpse of Touya's ducking a little at the sound of Enma's voice coming from a doorway at the other end of the lab. He kept his own expression neutral, turning to take a look of his own.

Touya's chair made a screeching sound against the floor, pushed out of the way in a sudden, nervous movement. "Let's do it, then," she said hurriedly, exchanging quick looks with Watari before she began walking towards the room Enma had emerged from.

On his part, Watari recoiled inwardly as he thought twenty five years back, to the last time he had been in that room. He had let his bitterness and his rage loose there, which damaged Hinote Katai – his former second in command, back then – most likely beyond healing. The man had deserved it, Watari had believed then, and he still thought as much right now. For the sour aftertaste the incident had left, he still regretted nothing of what he had done.

The room looked none to impressive – five by six meters, by rough estimation, it passed for yet another den, similar to many others inside the Science Department. With a single computer terminal, two chairs – each equipped with a keyboard – and a set of four ceiling lamps, it looked nothing like Mother's main operation center it was.

Watari passed by Enma at the door, making no eye contact, though he felt the god's triumphant stare on him all the time. He could almost hear his thoughts; that victorious fulfillment of the promise he had given Watari a few days before.

_You will come to me, _he had said, and those words had engraved themselves deep in Watari's mind. And come you have, Enma's entire posture whispered, proud and satisfied almost beyond restraint.

He shrugged, anxious enough without reminding himself of that horrible night in his apartment, when the god had come to him. The pain in his head assaulted him anew as he sat down in one of the chairs; he made sure none of it showed on his face. He would add not so much as an ounce to Enma's satisfaction, if he could help it. It seemed rather ironic, now that he was there, about to do what Enma had wanted him to do all along. He might have won Watari's cooperation, but he would not have his pride.

He pulled the keyboard closer to rest under his hands, glancing over at Touya, who had taken her position by the main terminal. He met her eyes; that worried look on her face did nothing to soothe his own fear.

And fear he did – the last time he had done that had cost him over three months worth of his time. The collective sum of consequences that followed exceeded the gain by large.

"Ready when you are," Touya said, turning to the computer.

Watari took a deep breath and tapped nervously at the keys. Here goes nothing, he mused, a second before he confirmed his login with a click of the enter key.

--

It was white.

Watari felt himself drift away, as though his consciousness had dissipated, sucked in by a vacuum stronger than his subconscious wish not to go in. When he opened his eyes, the brightness struck him; surrounded by nothing at first, he lifted his hand to give his eyes something to rest on. He knew he was looking at a virtual image of himself – identical with his real flesh, down to the faintest bruise, still vaguely visible around his wrist. He drew a breath, ignoring the knot in his stomach, as he tried to compose himself and stop his hands from shaking.

He looked up as his surroundings began to change. As if drawn by an invisible hand, the first lines appeared around him – the outline of a spacious room, slowly filling with details as the seconds rolled past.

Watching the virtual spectacle with cautious eyes, he felt uneasiness well up in him – he knew that place, he thought frantically, and it sure as hell wasn't what it should have been. The walls, the windows, the desks appeared, and he watched in rising panic, trying to gather coherent thoughts to figure out what to do. He felt himself go rigid at the sight of the person sitting atop one of the desks.

"Welcome back," Tategami said with a smirk. "Like my little surprise?"

Watari squeezed his eyes shut. The image of the EnmaCho – as real as it was not – still burned him inside his mind.

"Turn it off," he heard his own hoarse whisper, the words broken around the edges as an excruciating pain knocked him off his feet. He was falling apart, he could swear; the searing fire shot up his spine, left him nearly breathless, curling up on himself to escape the pain.

"Stop it," he groaned, spending the last of his breath. "Mother!"


	12. Chapter Eleven

_Note_: This chapter explains a lot, but at the same time, it makes references to **Absit Omen** (the prequel story to **Against the Wind**).

The music:  
Lisa Gerrard_ - Marantha_  
Sarah McLachlan - _Angel_  
Theater of Tragedy - _Angelique_

-  


* * *

- 

**Against the Wind**  
Chapter Eleven  


-

"_Make him shut up. This is painful."_

Afloat on fire that singed the edges of his consciousness, Watari gasped. Sans the heat inside, it was warm _around_ him, he noticed, even as he continued to lie still. He had yet to gather the strength to dare to open his eyes.

"_What the hell have you done?" _

A faint brush of sound against his mind and his muscles twitched in a sparse response to what he expected to be a harsh touch, and what was nothing save another gentle breeze of warmth. Slowly, carefully, it washed over him. A caress, he mused.

"_Silence. Both of you."_

Cautious, aware of himself though boneless and strangely calm, he tried to move, instinct bidding him to shy away from that commanding voice. It played a too familiar string of bitterness and vice and now, whatever the place, it would not reach out for him again. He would not be taken. Not this time.

They talked, somewhere nearly out of his hearing range; muffled sounds as though, just by the strength of his wish, he had crawled away and hidden from their curious eyes. And they fought, and someone moaned in pain but it wasn't him. It could not have been.

_I think I'm falling, _he thought absently. Startled at the clarity of the sound of his own thoughts, he shivered. _Let me. _

He felt the warm current of air caress him again, and he could no longer resist the impulse to look around. He opened his eyes, squinting at the bright assault. Wiped clean from the traces of deceit that had broken him apart, his surroundings were again pristine white.

Pain was just a memory, yet he should have felt it – he remembered now, how it had burned him; how it turned to ash the urge to run and the loathing and his shame. And his anger – it was gone, replaced with a sense of serenity that enveloped him even as he moved and carefully sat up.

_You heard me, _he thought, and it had to be his voice that echoed through the invisible walls. _Mother. How? _

He had called for her as he had crossed the threshold of his own resilience and it seemed like the last thing left to save him from turning into dust. It was not real, he knew – his body was not there, and he felt as though the flesh that held him was none of the binding cage he knew from each and every day on that netherworld plane. It felt real, and yet it didn't – he brought himself none of the expected pain as he pulled hard at a stray strand of his hair.

So he stood, and his breath caught – he could swear something picked him off the ground and held him; warm arms he could not see, a feather-light coil that lifted him up. And that warm breeze brushed at his hands, a gentle swirl across his cheek, around his neck.

_Where are you?_

It was there – a faint sensation at the back of his mind. Familiar, and yet so different; it did not violate him, this time. Like a presence within him – a part of him, once he thought of that – it made itself known, reestablished the link he vaguely remembered. _But how? _

In a half-daze of calm he failed to understand, and confusion at what had happened, he slowly turned around. The brightness blinded him, he thought briefly – and then it adjusted itself to a softer shade of gray. Watari rubbed his eyes; he could hear his breath, steady like the beating of his heart. Even and calm, just like his mind - as though the spectrum of emotions he knew he should feel had been locked away, too far to let it sink into him as long as he stayed where he was now.

He spotted movement out of the corner of his eye and frowned. There was what looked like a reflective surface in his line of sight. It could have been near or far – he could not estimate distance in that monotone space that surrounded him from all sides. And as he glanced down, a roughly drawn path appeared beneath his feet, leading straight towards nothingness far ahead of him. There, the only tangible sight was his own reflection, moving in slow waves that rippled softly on the surface of glass.

He took a step, and another; his feet were light, his body weightless. So he started along the path, unsure, half-expecting everything around him to change any second and knock him off his feet one more time. He remembered clearly – she had been there; Tategami, the one he had thought dead and gone for all that time. She had held a grudge, and revenge was hers as he had entered that place. Another illusion that took him by surprise and pushed him over the edge.

His reflection rippled again around the edges as he approached, slowly dissipating into a blurry image of dark contours and shadows. They might have lain beyond, or maybe it was just another illusion and Watari felt his curiosity grow. He walked faster until he could move no further and stood face to face with a screen-like wall. He blinked back confusion at what it showed.

"_Move over. He needs help." _

Touya. Her small frame was shaking with anger. Watari frowned. She fixed her stare on the dark god – Enma's distorted face turned into a blur as Watari looked at him. He liked it that way. He needed no reminders of that spoiled loathing that contorted that face. Yet it was his own body that made him shudder as he cast down his eyes, following Touya who dropped to the floor to catch him as he fell. It could have been someone else, not him, for the lack of connection Watari felt with the limp form.

_If they're there... _he thought, watching; like a spectacle on the screen, actors playing their roles. _But I'm there, too. And here. Wait. _

As he looked around again, he held his breath. _I've been here before._

"_Get out. Just go!" _

An aura of warmth wrapped tighter around him; it kept him separated from the images he watched, from Touya's anguished cry and the sight of Enma turning on his heel before he walked away from the scene. And that thought; it refused to leave – Watari knew that place, and the presence within him, and as a clear picture of comprehension began to form, he smiled.

_Is this what it looks like to you? _he thought. The images changed, the view shifting smoothly in front of his eyes. His lifeless body in Touya's arms, and her quiet words, but this place overwhelmed him and Watari squashed the sudden thought that soon, he would have to go.

_I remember now. _Scattered pieces of memories flashed in his mind and he turned around – the interface around him began to change, in sketchy lines drawn by a timid hand. Here was a bench, and the sakura trees all around, and the sun. With artificial cold tinting the sunbeams that peeked through the branches, yet almost real and deceptively warm. And he knew; this had been the best Mother could have done for him, back then, and now he was reminded of where he had found his hiding place twenty five years before.

There was air there – an illusion, he knew - but he drew a deep breath anyway. The breeze had turned cool and he felt a soft mist cast over his eyes.

_Is this all right? _he wondered, heedless of the affairs outside that virtual place. It felt strangely like home, as though he had returned after long years of having been missed. Driven by the urge to turn around – a nagging at his thoughts that would not let go – he glanced over his shoulder at the mirror-like wall.

Dissolved into a distant afterimage of dark contours and a soft addition of muffled sounds, Touya's silhouette holding his own in her arms was suddenly irrelevant. It was his reflection there that drew his eyes and Watari watched, entranced, how what looked like _him _reached out one hand, waiting, dark amber eyes locked on his. But _he _wasn't moving, save the heaving of his chest as his breathing quickened – it was not him in that mirror, even as his eyes tried to convince him otherwise.

_I don't want to go back, _his thoughts echoed again and the look on the reflected face changed. Watari shifted his eyes to catch a glimpse of the outstretched hand. _I'm tired of pain. _

And something in his mind told him that he could stay, even as he moved at last and touched the cool surface with his own hand. It had bidden him welcome and he knew he was not imagining any of this. She had tried to save him; somehow, the once lifeless machine and her endless streams of variables and values had gained a life of her own.

It was just cold glass under his fingertips, but the corners of Watari's lips curled up in a bright smile. _I know you, _he thought; a wordless acknowledgment of something he had felt all along. An echo answered him, a whisper among his thoughts. _You know me, too. Mother. _

Why his own image? He wondered, watching that too-familiar face, rather expressionless yet trying to convey meanings where words failed. And as the other hand reached out as well and he stepped closer to stand eye to eye with... himself? Watari felt something in him understand.

"You are me," he whispered. His voice had a sound no different from his thoughts, in that place. "And I am you," he said with a slow nod of his head. He almost laughed as that reflection mirrored his gesture, no sooner than after a while. It was brilliant, he thought. He had done so much more than he had ever dared let himself dream of.

He chased away the thoughts of another illusory trick; that very display in front of his eyes, and that feeling, connected every scattered piece of the puzzle he had run into over time. He would prove it. That had to be the answer to every instance of information acquired despite failures, every inexplicable disappearance of his tracks in the system while he knew for a fact he had yet to take care of that. And that message - sent from here, he was sure of it – it had told Konoe, as best as it could, to help him.

Too late for that, he thought sourly. But perhaps it was not yet too late to wrench Mother, and himself, out of Enma's greedy grasp.

_I have to go now, _he thought, careful to give his inner voice a gentle tone. _But I'll be back. _

He met resistance; merely a feeling that urged him to pay the new ideas no heed, turn back and sit under the sakura trees. But he had to make her obey; she had kept him there before, much longer than she should have. He had blamed his former colleagues but now, as he focused to figure out a way to control it, he could not help the second thoughts. Perhaps, if the nature of his connection to Mother exceeded the technical aspect Watari knew about, it had never been severed and keeping him inside had been the only idea Mother had to save him, when things got out of hand during the final testing run.

Now, he had to go back, gather his thoughts and come up with something resembling a plan. With the lack of a terminal of any sort, he visualized the termination of the program and soon, he felt himself slip loose from the grasp of the artificial warmth. He braced himself, expecting his physical body to serve him with another set of signs of its displeasure at the rapid changes and the hardware it was forced to carry. So he let out a slow breath, with one thought in his mind, and the bright day around him turned dark.

The room whirled around him as Watari blinked and opened his eyes. Wincing, he tried to move; his body obeyed the orders of his mind, though not without residual pain that still burned along his spine. He turned his head. Touya's face was blurry. His glasses were gone, but he could see her well enough. She sat on her heels, by his side, quick hands working a disposable syringe and a small bottle of something he could not identify.

"Thank goodness," she said tiredly. "I'm sorry, Watari-san. The system went crazy and Tategami--"

"Switched the programs," he said, grasping her hand as Touya took his arm. He sat up, biting down on his lip to distract himself from the discomfort of doing so. "I know. Tricky, I'll give her that. I had a curious ride."

She frowned, turning a pointed look towards the syringe. "Let me give you this. You suffered a severe shock reaction. It made you start rejecting the chips." Sighing at Watari's suspicious stare, Touya shrugged. "It's just an anti-inflammatory drug."

"Then it won't change anything." Watari looked up. "I've had enough of drugs to last me quite a while. Besides, it's all right. I think I know where I stand, so there's no need for that."

Touya shook her head as Watari gently pushed her hand away. "Your call. But I'm not sure it's the wisest decision you can make now."

Watari scrambled to his knees, mentally willing his sore body into obedience. "Appreciate the concern," he said, brushing his hair off his face. "But all I need right now is to verify what I've just found out."

Reluctant, Touya withdrew her hand and put the syringe away. "Tomorrow. Right now, you need rest."

"No." Watari gave his head a shake. "This is big. Bigger than I thought."

Something akin to fear flickered in the Head Researcher's dark eyes. "What is?" she asked.

"Mother," Watari said. A new rush of excitement electrified him as he thought back to what he had seen. "I sort of suspected that before, but now I know for a fact that the total of her signs of sentience are--"

"Don't be ridiculous, Watari-san," Touya cut in sharply. Her usually gentle eyes took on a cold, stern look. "It's a sophisticated machine, but to say that it displays the characteristics of—"

"I know what I saw." Annoyed, however slightly, Watari had heard enough and took his turn to interrupt. "What I felt, if you find that sort of input convincing enough."

Touya leaned in, face to face with him, and looked him straight in the eye. "If your medical knowledge doesn't reach that far, let me inform you that you still fall under most of the rules of the human physiology. Your state for the past fifteen minutes happened to be complete unconsciousness." She took a deep breath. "In other words, any memories you retain are hallucinations. Nothing more."

"Look." Watari stood. "I don't think it was a part of Tategami's program. I'm pretty sure I did _not _imagine this, either."

Touya pursed her lips as she, too, rose to her feet. "Can you prove that you didn't?"

Watari crossed his arms. "Can you prove that I did?"

"I would not argue if I weren't able to prove my point, Watari-san."

There was something like fear, still; it lingered at the edge of her gaze, showed in her stance. She tried for defiance, Watari noticed as he looked at her. She had left something unsaid in between the lines, and her pose fell apart. He would make sure to find out what.

"I can prove mine," he said. "And I will." I just have to find a way to do that behind your back, his inner voice added to that.

"Right now, you are going to rest," Touya said. She reached out her hand, yet faltered, apparently changing her mind. "It's late. You're supposed to be ready to work in the morning, and I'm supposed to make sure you are. And if we fail this time because you've got your priorities wrong, Enma will be on your case _and _on mine. I don't think either of us is looking forward to that."

"Fine, fine." Watari shrugged. "I'll be here. But I can very well start now."

Touya looked up at him with narrowed eyes. "Forget it," she said. "I'm sorry, but whether you like it or not, you'll do as I say. I won't clear this, and don't even think of attempting unauthorized entrance from here." She gave him a small bow and turned around. "Goodnight."

Watari watched her leave, raising one sandy eyebrow as she shut the door behind her with a too loud thud. Something was bothering her, he mused; from the moment he had mentioned Mother, Touya was more high strung than she seemed to have had the reason to be. His brow drew together and Watari pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose. Something still failed to add up in this grand puzzle. He would be damned if he did not figure it out.

Squinting, he looked around. The fuzzy blur of a room was a clear enough memory in his mind. Twenty five years earlier, he had thought his affairs with the Five Generals had come to a definite end. There, in that room, he had thought he had sure every part of his work that had kept him bound had been destroyed. By his own hand. I should have known, he thought bitterly. It went too smoothly to have been enough.

He took a step back. The sound of crushed glass made him take a sharp turn and he looked down. Kneeling on the floor, he let out a quiet groan. There went his glasses. Cursing under his breath, he picked up the broken spectacles and sighed.

"A lesser of the recent signs of bad luck," he muttered to himself. "It can always get worse, right?"

He brushed one hand across his face, then collected the few small fragments of glass before someone – or he – stepped on them again. Graceful did not describe him well, tonight. So he stood, crossed the room, and put whatever was left of his glasses on the desk. He swallowed hard; he remembered that place too well. Newer equipment, and the people had changed as well; yet to him, it suddenly seemed as though much less time had passed since he had last been there.

He had dealt with Hinote Katai, his former second in command, in that very room. That man had paid the highest price for every wrongdoing of his design. Watari had not taken lightly to his betrayal of trust, and Hinote had fallen under the force of his accumulated wrath. Right there – ironically enough, near the place where Watari himself had lain not long ago.

That night, he had been asked the question that stayed with him even as he left this place and moved on. Was it worth it? He had been asking himself often afterward. Quarter of a century ago, he did not know; but the more time passed, Watari was ever the more certain that the answer was 'no'.

Yet now, he knew, it was at least worth it to think again. Mother. He had given her life, and he did not know how. He wondered if Touya did. Or if she ever wanted him to find out. Her words had been quick, but in her face, unwelcome surprise had shown. The Head Researcher of all people, he thought, should have been aware of something as important as that. And yet it puzzled him. To keep such a secret, to hope he would be there and stay unaware, was naïve – if not worse.

Tempted to find out how much Touya's warning was worth, Watari chuckled at his broken glasses. Well, at least he would not feel so bad about complying despite his urge to plunge straight into solving the problem that boggled his mind. He did not remember consciously using his power on Mother; not then, not now, not ever – and the strength of their connection left him without doubt that it must have been his doing. He remembered the feeling, how she touched his mind. No matter what they did, they could not have forged something as strong as that.

He would find a way to go back, alone, and figure it out. Perhaps Mother's memory stored hints that could push him onto the right track. He did not want any of them to know if he found anything relevant, though perhaps there was no good way around that. He had only one way to find out.

Tomorrow. He would go in again, and maybe, if he tried hard enough, he could start working towards regaining the upper hand.

He left the room, hard pressed to stop himself from looking back. That place had haunted his dreams often, long ago. Yet even when it stopped, and Watari had put those memories away in the farthest corner of his mind, he could not have escaped the feeling that, one day, he would come back.

Sometimes, he hated being right.

--

Watari brushed the light switch with his fingers, but thought better of it as he returned to his room. Instead, he left the door slightly ajar. The dull throbbing in his temples would not appreciate the hard light, but he did not fancy sitting in the impenetrable darkness, either. The filtered air left his eyes dry; he rubbed at them and blinked a few times to make heads and tails of the bleary contours of black against the grim gray of the walls.

The unfamiliar interior, and the very atmosphere, did nothing to lift his heart. So he smiled, to himself – or maybe, subconsciously, to the image of Tatsumi in his mind's eye that formed there as Watari glanced at his own long shadow splashed across the floor.

He let out a quiet sigh and sat down on the futon by the wall. Such a gloomy place. He had been driven, once, to complete oblivion to things such as that. Ambition, the unquenchable desire for achievement, had put his work before everything else. He would not have cared, twenty five years back. But now, he caught his thoughts wandering to the previous night, yet again. He suddenly realized that, sweet as it had been, it returned with a painful pang in his heart.

He knew he should not have let that happen. One more thing to miss, now that it was out of his reach. The simple pleasure of sharing warmth, of falling asleep in somebody's arms. No... not somebody's, he thought, burying his face in his hands. In Tatsumi's arms. It was a gift, he told himself, and he should cast away the thoughts of how, in the end, it made leaving all the more difficult for him.

The ghosts of Tatsumi's arms whispered around him, in the alluring darkness of that room; every silent shadow he had passed in the corridor as he walked back reminded him of what he had left behind.

_You are Watari Yutaka. My partner. _

Over and over again, he replayed the words in his mind and his memory held every subtle nuance of Tatsumi's voice. He could speak so gently, when he spoke from his heart, Watari thought as he lay back. He crossed his arms under his head and closed his eyes, to restrain the unbidden tears that began to burn therein. Of all things, going soft right now would be a mistake. He had to be strong. Had to keep his thoughts clear.

He could do it. There had to be a way. Even Enma had a weakness, and it was his greed. Perhaps he had more in mind than just his personal gain, but Watari was no longer blind. It was not his victory; not anymore, once Enma got what he'd wanted all along. It would be his prison, and if he could help it, Watari would take any tainted kind of freedom over captivity any day.

Yet the illusions had made him question too much, too often, and it scared him more than he cared to admit. Perhaps all of this was just another game. He could not tell once, how could he trust his own perception again? It would have been convenient, to make him believe what he did was real. And even if he won, he wondered, how brilliant a trick on Enma's part would that be? To convince him that he was free. Watari would let go, yet he would live inside his mind, with Mother to keep him company, and the people who were nothing but what he wanted them to be.

He treated himself to a harsh reprimand as he tossed his head from side to side. Anything to stop the dark thoughts from invading his mind. Real or not, he had no choice but to go on. Yet now he was alone; he could heed the impulse to curl up and screw his eyes shut to escape the darkness of those thoughts.

And he did. He wrapped his arms around himself to remember the gentle touch; it had been his, just last night. But not anymore. Fingers carding through his hair – could he convince himself that they were not his own? It was not his hand now, but Seiichirou's; and maybe, if he tried hard enough, he would hear another heart beating along with his. Sound by sound, word by word, he chased away all save those good memories that kept him warm.

But it did not work. Disappointed, but not overly surprised, Watari sighed. Sleep would not come, either, much as he needed it. He had so much to do, and who knew how little time, before everything was ready and he lost his chance to finish what he had started _his own _way.

Tossing and turning annoyed him. He used to toy with his projects on the sleepless nights. That option gone, he rose anyway, and reached for the bag that sat in the chair, brought by whoever had gone to his apartment to fetch a few of his necessary things. He fished in it for his hair brush and tossed the bag away. It would be a long night, he thought.

Knotted without the ribbon, his hair needed a long while of untangling and pulling to bring it back to something resembling a decent state. But not long enough. Soon, Watari was pacing the room again, absently twirling a thick golden strand around his hand. He needed a plan. He needed information as well, but Touya, nice as she seemed, did not strike him as one to answer the sort of questions he wanted to ask. Tategami would know – she became a part of Mother years ago and Watari doubted there were many secrets she did not know about. Tough luck. The past twelve hours had shown him she was the last person in Meifu inclined to help him in any way.

The others... Watari did not suppose they knew much at all. Unless you played a crucial part, you were better off not getting too interested in what did not figure in your job description. Once again, he thought, he ended up completely on his own.

He tossed the brush onto the bag and reached in his pocket for a hair tie. Force of habit, he mused with a sad smile. His last one found a new home, the day before. Tatsumi would probably ponder the sense of his leaving that thing behind. Not that he would have had any use for a hair ribbon, with his hair so short.

Footsteps in the hall, he thought, and turned towards the door. The faint light down the corridor did only so much to disperse the darkness of that windowless place. But no sooner than a few seconds later did he see a darker shadow growing wider in the crack in the door. He frowned.

The sounds faded; the black shadow ceased to move.

"Come with me," said a whisper-soft voice. "We need to talk."

Watari raised his eyebrows in slight surprise. Some change of front, that, Touya-san. He tucked his hair behind his ears and shivered; not with the cold, but with something like anticipation that made his skin tingle.

Touya started back down the hall, waiting for neither his reply nor for Watari to follow. But follow her he did, curious what 'talk' stood for and what made the Head Researcher change her mind. His shoes made loud clicking noises against the tiled floor, in a strange, uneven echo to Touya's, until the woman disappeared in one of the rooms. The door moaned on its hinges, left open and still in light swing as he caught up with her.

Already bent over her computer, Touya typed something with one hand, waving the other one over her shoulder. "Close the door," she said.

Watari did as much. An electronic lock made a single beeping sound on engage. He turned around.

It had to be her private quarters, he concluded, if the stacks of magazines, newspapers that sat on the floor, and the thick volumes on almost every flat space were any indication. Touya herself straightened herself and dug into the pocket of her lab coat for something Watari did not manage to identify. She whirled in a flurry of dark hair and white coat and hurried past him without a word.

He watched with quirked eyebrows as she plastered a carefully inked fuda on the door and turned to him with a grin. "Out of sight, out of mind. And out of the hearing range, for that matter."

She flipped the light switch. Watari winced, the sudden brightness too harsh on his eyes.

"You're still in pain," Touya stated matter-of-factly. Watari sent her wordless congratulations for perceptiveness in the form of a wry smile.

She produced a small bottle from one of her pockets and tossed it to him. Watari caught it, but barely, in both hands, cursing his earlier clumsiness hundredfold.

"You do need your glasses," Touya chuckled a little as she shed her lab coat and discarded it onto one of the chairs. She gave him a critical look and turned off the light, in favor of a smaller lamp on her desk.

Watari cleared his throat. "Yeah. The search party reported it as unfortunate casualty earlier tonight."

"I'm not going to ask." Touya perched herself down on the chair, indicating the other one across the table. "Have a seat."

With a deep breath, Watari nodded and did as he had been told. He watched the woman closely now through slightly squinted eyes. More relaxed than before, there was still something tense in her posture, something defensive in how she crossed her arms under her breasts.

"I'm sorry I brushed you off before," she started. "But you need to learn to get the hint." Dark eyes glanced over at the door, then focused back on Watari's face. "If something looks like it can help your case and you're not sure if it's common knowledge, assume it isn't.

Her words registered and Watari's heart skipped a beat. "I wasn't aware of having a case going," he said. Studying her face for hints of reaction that would tell him she was baiting him did not help. Touya only rolled her eyes.

"I'll be damned if you aren't." She looked at her wristwatch. "For the next half an hour, these," she pointed at the fuda on the door, and three similar ones on the walls, "and the fact that Tategami's undergoing maintenance, if you'll pardon the phrasing, mean that nothing you say will leave this room in any shape or form."

Watari cast her a dark look from under the cover of his lashes. "Sure. I can't go any further down, so might as well dish out my ingenious, nonexistent plan to overthrow Enma and take his place."

Chuckling, Touya leaned back in her chair. "I'm not sure I'd want his job, and I doubt that's even remotely close to what you're after."

Watari's expression of focus did not falter; Touya's laughter not in the least contagious. He remained silent.

"All right. If you put it that way." Touya got up. "It boils down to what you were saying earlier, though I'm not sure how much you figured out, so I was hoping you would tell me." She crossed the room and opened a small cupboard.

Watari watched her every move, weighing his options all the while. She was up to something. It had to do with him, too, and he could not yet decide whether he liked it at all.

Back by the table, Touya set a plastic bottle of water in front of him and walked away again. She flipped the power switch on an electric kettle, silent for a while as she prepared two porcelain cups, and reached for a black, nondescript container that sat on the counter top.

"Coffee?" she asked.

Watari shook two pills from the bottle onto his hand and popped them in his mouth. He chased them down with a generous sip of the cool water. "I wouldn't mind."

Touya nodded and reassigned herself to her task. When she spoke again, her tone was a conversational one.

"If you don't want to talk, I'll start," she said. "You left quite a mess behind you. I guess you already know it was rather harmless in the end, considering your sabotage would have blown the Project if they hadn't been prepared for that."

Watari shrugged. "Tategami took a real pleasure in the way she informed me of that," he said, his voice sour. So he was in for a recap of his grand failure, now. He twirled the bottle in his hands to work off the uncomfortable feeling of shame that welled up in his gut.

"Well, that doesn't really surprise me, but we'll get to that," Touya said as she poured the steaming water into the cups. "After you vanished, the techs in charge of restoring Mother's database reported a series of strange occurrences. They retrieved the data pertaining to the live capture software your virus corrupted, but that was a given..." She paused as she turned and met Watari's eyes. "The main concern lay in backing everything up, in case you discovered the scheme, somehow, and came down on it again. And that's where they ran into the first wall."

Watari swallowed hard, tempted to let his tongue loose and retort with a vicious comment or two, but he kept his silence. Listening to the details of how he had been tricked angered him more than he cared to admit. It hurt more than his pride, too.

Touya returned to the table with two cups of coffee. She set one in front of Watari and went back to reclaim her seat. "The system failed to execute the maintenance software once the backup drives were installed. They tried manually copying the files onto the external disks, but with no luck. The entries turned up empty, like the disks themselves were corrupted, or incompatible, but Mother reported no errors like that. The techs tried repeatedly until the only option left was a total overhaul."

Almost again his will, a haughty grin pulled at one side of Watari's mouth. "Must have been frustrating."

Touya let out a quiet snort. "Imagine that. Better yet, it didn't help. Mother's functionality was restored, though; all apart from that. Besides the transmissions between the main unit and your terminal, no data was permitted outside the system in any shape or form." She broke off to take a sip of her coffee, then waved her hand. "Mind you, I wasn't here to see that, myself. The curious thing is that not all of it was in the official reports. But people talked."

Watari sipped down on his own coffee. The porcelain cup felt pleasantly warm in his cold hands. "That figures," he said after a while.

Touya gave a small nod of her head. "I went over everything a good number of times, back and forth. I was curious what you did and how you did it. I'd never seen anything like that before."

To his knowledge, the virus he had planted had no right to cause damage of such sort. Loath as he was to admit it, Watari had not thought such radical methods would have been necessary at all. Not my doing, he mused, but he kept that thought to himself. For the time being, at least. He nodded for her to go on.

"There was nothing at first sight, but that was impossible. No computer, Mother least of all, goes mad like that on its own. So I went back to the beginning. The data recovery program dug up a fair share of your private work, but apart from that, it spat out a number of things I was told were gone beyond retrieval. An obvious lie, that; I didn't have much trouble getting it back. And when I put it together, I arrived at an impressive collection of reports from those three months when you were comatose. In the words of one Hinote Katai, who oversaw the research..."

Touya sifted through a stack of papers on the table and retrieved one sheet. "The first anomaly was registered on July the twenty fourth, 1982," she read, "immediately after the attempt at disconnecting test subject one, KinU, from the system. The resulting critical error destabilized Mother, causing an immediate rejection of GyokuTo and destruction of her physical form."

Watari's eyes widened in shock. For a moment, the dead silence rang in his ears. His heart pounded in his chest, his mouth went dry.

"This is not in the reports, but I suspect Hinote wrote you off. They wanted to finalize the Project at any cost, and you didn't suit their purpose anymore." Touya shrugged. "Either way, their attempt at killing you the second time backfired, and they ended up with leftovers of Tategami, you, and Mother... with a mind of her own."

Watari swallowed around the annoying dryness before he remembered he had been clutching his coffee cup and took a sip, careful not to choke as he pushed it down his constricted throat. The information overload flashed through his mind and, as he tried to remember to breathe, Watari stared into his cup.

"It didn't add up," Touya continued, "until Enma let me in on everything and I looked you up. You had natural telekinetic abilities, however insignificant. It translated well to giving inanimate objects your spiritual energy; life, if you will, when you died."

Watari looked up.

Touya met his eyes. "Let me give you a piece of my mind. I believe that failed experiment left your subconsciousness intact enough to know they were about to off you. And since your connection to Mother was also intact, your instinctive defense reaction gave that computer life."

Watari felt as though a numb shell he had been locked in cracked, and he rose rapidly to his feet. The chair toppled over with a loud clatter. He reached to pick it up, with a soft apology muttered under his breath. He cast his mind back to every instance of inexplicable behavior on Mother's part, the latest one included, and set it against what Touya had just said. It made perfect sense.

"The virtual reality emulator was improved upon," he said quickly, half to Touya, half to himself as he paced across the room. "The original problem with real-time content refreshing wasn't an issue anymore because Mother could parse some of the incoming signal on her own. Tell me," he said as he came to a sudden halt. "The illusion before I came here. Who killed the process?"

"Bingo." Touya snapped her fingers. "No one did. It looked like it crashed on our terminals, and perhaps I could have bought into that explanation. Until today."

"Mother killed the program." Half-dazed, Watari felt like he plowed through a thick net of riddles that finally were coming together into a coherent whole.

"She reacts to your emotional extremes, it seems. An overload on the incoming channel works like a command, but her response is based on a very primal instinct and all she can do is what makes the most sense to a computer."

"Freeze the system," Watari whispered. "To avoid further damage."

Touya smiled. "In a way, you could say she saved your life."

"More than once," Watari said as he walked back to the table on somewhat weak legs and sat in his chair. His mind worked in overdrive again. He felt almost exhilarated, despite the mixed feelings brought up by each next rushing thought. "Tategami said it was an error in my programming that did her in. Another little lie on her part, or..."

"It wasn't you." Touya shook her head. "It was Mother."

Momentary confusion derailed his train of thought. Watari chewed absently on the inside of his cheek as he searched for the right words again, among the hundreds of simultaneous ideas that hit him at once. "That makes sense," he agreed. "But in this case, why didn't she just say that Mother did it because of me?"

"She doesn't believe it." Touya set down her cup and folded her hands on the table. "Go figure, she'll take Enma's words over anything, if they point to you. She needs a scapegoat, I guess. Just ignore her. She's a walking vice vial around here, and she's quite commonly known as such."

Watari frowned, even as a soft chuckle escaped him. "I don't believe she values Enma's so-called truth over valid proof."

"Well." It was Touya's turn to rise. She picked up her coffee cup and carried it to the sink. "I don't suppose she knows everything we've just covered. There's not much proof, either. The indications of Mother's sentience could easily pass as glitches, errors, you name it."

"Wouldn't it be possible to pinpoint her unique signature? The pattern--"

"It matches yours." Touya turned. "To the dot. That's no scientifically accepted proof, at this point. Long story short; anyone familiar with your pattern who has ever examined Mother said it was _you, _and nothing more."

Watari looked at her, but beyond the mist over his eyes, he saw a flash of memory of his own reflection; he remembered that feeling and the moment when, in that virtual reality, it had dawned on him. _I am you. You are me. _

"The consequences of that carry further than you think." Touya leaned against the table as she spoke. "Mother automatically rejects anyone that isn't you on connection attempt. I tried, myself. Repeatedly." She gave her shoulders a light shrug. "That's what I was originally supposed to do. Though, I guess, in the long run, I'm glad. And you should be, as well."

His eyebrows climbed into his hairline as Watari gave Touya a dubious look. "I'm not sure what I'm missing here because I can't see how I should be happy about that. But you got me curious now."

Touya's face took on a serious expression. "If you're the only one Mother will accept, then you got yourself a hell of a wild card, there. Enma can't get rid of you without blowing the Project, and that's the last thing he's inclined to do. It shoves an enormous advantage right into your hands."

Watari narrowed his eyes. Touya seemed calm, and he tried to maintain a similar image of himself. But inside, he was trembling; on the verge of what could be the chance he had hoped to find, he dared not imagine he had found it just like that.

"Come on." His silence her cue to continue, Touya took a step closer as she spoke. "You want out. For good, not for a while."

Struggling to overcome the loss for words, Watari tried to decide whether he should believe his ears at all. "What business do _you _have in that?"

With a humorless chuckle, Touya glanced aslant. "I'm not going to waste time trying to convince you there's nothing in this for me. You'll believe me or you won't at your own discretion. But I'll say this: I refuse to take sides until I have no other choice. I can't help you, but I won't stand in your way."

"Why?"

The Head Researcher's expression hardened. "Because no scientific pursuit, much less personal gain, warrants_ needless _cruelty and underhanded mind games." Her eyes shifted over, her gaze resting upon Watari's in a firm stare. "If you can make this blow in Enma's face, maybe you'll get your life back, somehow." Briefly, she closed her eyes. "Maybe you owed this to him, maybe you didn't. The deal was between you and him. But I don't want to stand and watch him drive you mad for the sake of his overblown dreams."

Watari laughed bitterly. He brushed both palms, now damp, across his face. "I wonder, I do."

"This isn't an illusion, if you can take my word for it," she said in a gentle tone. Then she took a step back. "Either way, keep in mind that Tategami has access to everything you do, except when her operating program hibernates during maintenance. Every other day, between one and three in the morning."

Watari smiled and gave her a small, appreciative nod. "Thanks. I'll remember that."

"I told you what I know. It's up to you what you'll do with it. Don't screw it up."

Watari watched Touya pull herself up from her lean. He wondered, not quite believing she had said the truth about the lack of personal gain on her part. Then again, even if she was setting him up, he decided he did not have much more left to lose.

"I'll try," he said. He got up and inclined his head. "Thanks for the coffee."

Touya nodded back. "Anytime."

He crossed the room towards the door, feeling slightly lightheaded. The Head Researcher's voice caught him as he rested his hand on the door handle.

"This is a no-win case, unless you get yourself a strong enough argument to make Enma back down."

Watari felt himself deflate a little. There existed only one thing that could do the trick; he knew all too well. "Mother," he whispered under his breath. He did not look up, even as Touya's quiet steps sounded behind him and the lock on the door disengaged.

"This isn't something you can grab and run. If you try, he won't stop until he tracks you down." Touya paused. She drew a deep, clearly audible breath. "If you can't find a place where he has no power, or where he won't dare to use it, take my advice and don't even try."

His hand clasped tight around the door handle as Watari tried to brace himself. He cast a brief glance over his shoulder. "Right."

The door creaked open. He crossed the threshold; his feet were heavy and a faint throbbing reclaimed residence in his head. Now he needed time to digest it, before the information could be put to use.

"Oh, and Watari-san?" Touya called after him.

Watari started a little at the sudden cheerful tone of her voice. "Yes?"

"There are contact lenses in the drawer of your desk."

He shook his head, not even bothering to suppress a grin. "Thanks, chief."

Watari took his time as he made his way back to his room, trying to gather all the information, the new facts, and contain the mix of heavy anticipation and hope that shook him up. Maybe Touya had lied. Maybe she genuinely wanted to help, but he could not figure her out. Of all she had said, one thing kept bouncing back and forth in his mind. Mother, he thought. The best bet. Or rather the only one he had, he knew; yet it wasn't just as simple as his inner voice made it sound.

_A place where Enma's power won't help him get it back. _

He shook his head. Wherever he went, he would not be safe. How long could he run, even if he somehow managed to take his winning card far enough from here?

Struck by a sudden thought that left him breathless, he came to a rapid halt. For a while he stood, regaining his breath. There _was _a place where the political affairs might slap Enma's greedy hand.

Watari closed his eyes against the burning there. "GenSouKai," he whispered to himself.


End file.
